MIND CONTROL - A 13 PART SERIES - COMPLETE (G002)
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
Can be viewed as a Google Doc in full if you
CLICK HEREThere was just a small news announcement on the radio in early July after a
short heat wave, three inmates of Vacaville Medical Facility had died in non-air
conditioned cells. Two of those prisoners, the announcement said, may have died
as a result of medical treatment. No media inquiries were made, no major news
stories developed because of these deaths.
But what was the medical treatment that may have caused their deaths? The
Medical Facility indicates they were mind control or behavior modification
treatments. A deeper probe into the death of these two inmates unravels a
mind-boggling tale of horror that has been part of California penal history for
a long time, and one that caused national outcries two decades ago.
Mind control experiments have been part of California for decades and permeate
mental institutions and prisons. But, it is not just in the penal society that
mind control measures have been used. Minority children were subjected to
experimentation at abandoned Nike Missile Sites, veterans who fought for
American freedom were also subjected to the programs. Funding and
experimentations of mind control have been part of the U.S. Health, Education
and Welfare Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Central
Intelligence Agency through the Phoenix Program, the Stanford Research
Institute, the Agency for International Development, the Department of Defense,
the Department of Labor, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration, and the National Science Foundation.
California has been in the forefront of mind control experimentation. Government
experiments also were conducted in the Haight-Ashbury District in San Francisco
at the height of the Hippy reign. In 1974, Senator Sam Erwin, of Watergate fame,
headed a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights studying the subject
of "Individual rights and the Federal role in behavior modification." Though
little publicity was given to this committee's investigation, Senator Erwin
issued a strong condemnation of the federal role in mind control. That
condemnation, however, did not halt mind control experiments, they just received
more circuitous funding.
Many of the case histories concerning individuals of whom the mind control
experiments were used, show a strange concept in the minds of those seeking
guinea pigs. Those subject to the mind control experiments would be given
indefinite sentences, his freedom was dependent upon how well the experiment
went. One individual, for example, was arrested for joyriding, given a two-year
sentence and held for mind control experiments. He was held for 18 years.
Here are just a few experiments used in the mind control program:
A naked inmate is strapped down on a board. His wrists and ankles are cuffed
to the board and his head is rigidly held in place by a strap around his neck
and a helmet on his head. He is left in a darkened cell, unable to remove his
body wastes. When a meal is delivered, one wrist is unlocked so he could feel
around in the dark for his food and attempt to pour liquid down his throat
without being able to lift his head.
Another experiment creates a muscle relaxant. Within 30 to 40 seconds
paralysis begins to invade the small muscles of the fingers, toes, and eyes
and then the inter costal muscles and diaphragm. The heart slows down to about
60 beats per minute. This condition, together with respiratory arrests, sets
in for as long as two to five minutes before the drug begins to wear off. The
individual remains fully conscious and is gasping for breath. It is "likened
to dying, it is almost like drowning" the experiment states.
Another drug induces vomiting and was administered to prisoners who didn't get
up on time or caught swearing or lying, or even not greeting their guards
formally. The treatment brings about uncontrolled vomiting that lasts from 15
minutes to an hour, accompanied by a temporary cardio vascular effect
involving changes in the blood pressure.
Another deals with creating body rigidness, aching restlessness, blurred
vision, severe muscular pain, trembling and fogged cognition.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the U.S. Army have admitted
mind control experiments. Many deaths have occurred.
In tracing the steps of government mind control experiments, the trail leads to
legal and illegal usages, usage for covert intelligence operations, and
experiments on innocent people who were unaware that they were being used.
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
====================================================================
Second in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Sentinel commenced a series on mind control in early August
and suspended it until September because of the extensive research required
after additional information was received.
In July, two inmates died at the Vacaville Medical Facility. According to prison
officials at the time, the two may have died as a result of medical treatment,
that treatment was the use of mind control or behavior modification drugs. A
deeper study into the deaths of the two inmates has unraveled a mind-boggling
tale of horror that has been part of California penal history for a long time,
and one that caused national outcries years ago.
In the August article, the Sentinel presented a graphic portrait of some of the
mind control experiments that have been allowed to continue in the United
States. On November 1974 a U.S. Senate Sub committee on Constitutional Rights
investigated federally-funded behavior modification programs, with emphasis on
federal involvement in, and the possible threat to individual constitutional
rights of behavior modification, especially involving inmates in prisons and
mental institutions.
The Senate committee was appalled after reviewing documents from the following
sources:
Neuro-Research Foundation's study entitled The Medical Epidemiology of
Criminals.
The Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence from UCLA.
The closed adolescent treatment center.
A national uproar was created by various articles in 1974, which prompted the
Senate investigation. But after all these years, the news that two inmates at
Vacaville may have died from these same experiments indicates that though a
nation was shocked in 1974, little was done to correct the experimentations. In
1977, a Senate subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, chaired by
Senator Ted Kennedy, focussed on the CIA's testing of LSD on unwitting citizens.
Only a mere handful of people within the CIA knew about the scope and details of
the program.
To understand the full scope of the problem, it is important to study its
origins. The Kennedy subcommittee learned about the CIA Operation M.K.-Ultra
through the testimony of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. The purpose of the program, accord
ing to his testimony, was to "investigate whether and how it was possible to
modify an individual's behavior by covert means". Claiming the protection of the
National Security Act, Dr. Gottlieb was unwilling to tell the Senate
subcommittee what had been learned or gained by these experiments.
He did state, however, that the program was initially engendered by a concern
that the Soviets and other enemies of the United States would get ahead of the
U.S. in this field. Through the Freedom of Information Act, researchers are now
able to obtain documents detailing the M.K.-Ultra program and other CIA behavior
modification projects in a special reading room located on the bottom floor of
the Hyatt Regency in Rosslyn, VA.
The most daring phase of the M.K.-Ultra program involved slipping unwitting
American citizens LSD in real life situations. The idea for the series of
experiments originated in November 1941, when William Donovan, founder and
director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA
during World War Two. At that time the intelligence agency invested $5000 for
the "truth drug" program. Experiments with scopolamine and morphine proved both
unfruitful and very dangerous. The program tested scores of other drugs,
including mescaline, barbituates, benzedrine, cannabis indica, to name a few.
The U.S. was highly concerned over the heavy losses of freighters and other
ships in the North Atlantic, all victims of German U-boats. Information about
German U-boat strategy was desperately needed and it was believed that the
information could be obtained through drug-influenced interrogations of German
naval P.O.W.s, in violation of the Geneva Accords.
Tetrahydrocannabinol acetate, a colorless, odorless marijuana extract, was used
to lace a cigarette or food substance without detection. Initially, the
experiments were done on volunteer U.S. Army and OSS personnel, and testing was
also disguised as a remedy for shell shock. The volunteers became known as
"Donovan's Dreamers". The experiments were so hush-hush, that only a few top
officials knew about them. President Franklin Roosevelt was aware of the
experiments. The "truth drug" achieved mixed success.
The experiments were halted when a memo was written: "The drug defies all but
the most expert and search analysis, and for all practical purposes can be
considered beyond analysis." The OSS did not, however, halt the program. In 1943
field tests of the extract were being con ducted, despite the order to halt
them. The most celebrated test was conducted by Captain George Hunter White, an
OSS agent and ex-law enforcement official, on August Del Grazio, aka Augie
Dallas, aka Dell, aka Little Augie, a New York gangster. Cigarettes laced with
the acetate were offered to Augie without his knowledge of the content. Augie,
who had served time in prison for assault and murder, had been one of the
world's most notorious drug dealers and smugglers. He operated an opium alkaloid
factory in Turkey and he was a leader in the Italian underworld on the Lower
East Side of New York. Under the influence of the drug, Augie revealed volumes
of information about the under world operations, including the names of high
ranking officials who took bribes from the mob. These experiments led to the
encouragement of Donovan. A new memo was issued: "Cigarette experiments
indicated that we had a mechanism which offered promise in relaxing prisoners to
be interrogated."
When the OSS was disbanded after the war, Captain White continued to administer
behavior modifying drugs. In 1947, the CIA replaced the OSS. White's service
record indicates that he worked with the OSS, and by 1954 he was a high ranking
Federal Narcotics Bureau officer who had been loaned to the CIA on a part-time
basis.
White rented an apartment in Greenwich Village equipped with one-way mirrors,
surveillance gadgets and disguised himself as a seaman. White drugged his
acquaintances with LSD and brought them back to his apartment. In 1955, the
operation shifted to San Francisco. In San Francisco, "safehouses" were
established under the code name Operation Midnight Climax. Midnight Climax hired
prostitute addicts who lured men from bars back to the safehouses after their
drinks had been spiked with LSD. White filmed the events in the safehouses. The
purpose of these "national security brothels" was to enable the CIA to
experiment with the act of lovemaking for extracting information from men. The
safehouse experiments continued until 1963 until CIA Inspector General John
Earman criticized Richard Helms, the director of the CIA and father of the
M.K.-Ultra project. Earman charged the new director John McCone had not been
fully briefed on the M.K.-Ultra Project when he took office and that "the
concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people within
and outside the Agency to be distasteful and unethical." He stated that "the
rights and interest of U.S. citizens are placed in jeopardy". The Inspector
General stated that LSD had been tested on individuals at all social levels,
high and low, native American and foreign."
Earman's criticisms were rebuffed by Helms, who warned, "Positive operation
capacity to use drugs is diminishing owing to a lack of realistic testing. Tests
were necessary to keep up with the Soviets." But in 1964, Helms had testified
before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John
Kennedy, that "Soviet research has consistently lagged five years behind Western
research".
Upon leaving government service in 1966, Captain White wrote a startling letter
to his superior. In the letter to Dr. Gottlieb, Captain White reminisced about
his work in the safehouses with LSD. His comments were frightening. "I was a
very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the
vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun," White wrote. "Where else could a
red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the
sanction and blessing of the all-highest?"
(NEXT: How the drug experiments helped bring about the rebirth of the mafia and
the French Connection.)
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
======================================================================
Part Three in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Though the CIA continued to maintain drug experiments in the streets of America
after the program was official cancelled, the United States reaped tremendous
value from it. With George Hunter Whites connection to underworld figure Little
Augie, connections were made with Mafia king-pin Lucky Luciano, who was in
Dannemore Prison.
Luciano wanted freedom, the Mafia wanted drugs, and the United States wanted
Sicily. The date was 1943. Augie was the go-between between Luciano and the
United States War Department.
Luciano was transferred to a less harsh prison and began to be visited by
representatives of the Office of Naval Intelligence and from underworld figures,
such as Meyer Lansky. A strange alliance was formed between the U.S.
Intelligence agencies and the Mafia, who controlled the West Side docks in New
York. Luciano regained active leadership in organized crime in America.
The U.S. Intelligence community utilized Luciano's underworld connections in
Italy. In July of 1943, Allied forces launched their invasion of Sicily, the
beginning push into occupied Europe. General George Patton's Seventh Army
advanced through hundreds of miles of territory that was fraught with
difficulty, booby trapped roads, snipers, confusing mountain topography, all
within close range of 60,000 hostile Italian troops. All this was accomplished
in four days, a military "miracle" even for Patton.
Senate Estes Kefauver's Senate Sub committee on Organized Crime asked, in 1951,
how all this was possible. The answer was that the Mafia had helped to protect
roads from Italian snipers, served as guides through treacherous mountain
terrain, and provided needed intelligence to Patton's army. The part of Sicily
which Patton's forces traversed had at one time been completely controlled by
the Sicilian Mafia, until Benito Mussolini smashed it through the use of police
repression.
Just prior to the invasion, it was hardly even able to continue shaking down
farmers and shepherds for protection money. But the invasion changed all this,
and the Mafia went on to play a very prominent and well-documented role in the
American military occupation of Italy.
The expedience of war opened the doors to American drug traffic and Mafia
domination. This was the beginning of the Mafia-U.S. Intelligence alliance, an
alliance that lasts to this day and helped to support the covert operations of
the CIA, such as the Iran-Contra operations. In these covert operations, the CIA
would obtain drugs from South America and Southeast Asia, sell them to the Mafia
and use the money for the covert purchase of military equipment. These
operations accelerated when Congress cut off military funding for the Contras.
One of the Allies top occupation priorities was to liberate as many of their own
soldiers from garrison duties so that they could participate in the military
offensive. In order to accomplish this, Don Calogero's Mafia were pressed into
service, and in July of 1943, the Civil Affairs Control Office of the U.S. Army
appointed him mayor of Villalba and other Mafia officials as mayors of other
towns in Sicily.
As the northern Italian offensive continued, Allied intelligence became very
concerned over the extent to which the Italian Communists resistance to
Mussolini had driven Italian politics to the left. Community Party membership
had doubled between 1943 and 1944, huge leftist strikes had shut down factories
and the Italian underground fighting Mussolini had risen to almost 150,000 men.
By mid-1944, the situation came to a head and the U.S. Army terminated arms
drops to the Italian Resistance, and started appointing Mafia officials to
occupation administration posts. Mafia groups broke up leftists rallies and
reactivated black market operations throughout southern Italy.
Lucky Luciano was released from prison in 1946 and deported to Italy, where he
rebuilt the heroin trade. The court's decision to release him was made possible
by the testimony of intelligence agents at his hearing, and a letter written by
a naval officer reciting what Luciano had done for the Navy. Luciano was
supposed to have served from 30 to 50 years in prison. Over 100 Mafia members
were similarly deported within a couple of years.
Luciano set up a syndicate which transported morphine base from the Middle East
to Europe, refined it into heroin, and then shipped it into the United States
via Cuba. During the 1950's, Marseilles, in Southern France, became a major city
for the heroin labs and the Corsican syndicate began to actively cooperate with
the Mafia in the heroin trade. Those became popularly known as the French
Connection.
In 1948, Captain White visited Luciano and his narcotics associate Nick Gentile
in Europe. Gentile was a former American gangster who had worked for the Allied
Military Government in Sicily. By this time, the CIA was already subsidizing
Corsican and Italian gangsters to oust Communist unions from the Port of
Marseilles. American strategic planners saw Italy and southern France as
extremely important for their Naval bases as a counterbalance to the growing
naval forces of the Soviet Union. CIO/AFL organizer Irving Brown testified that
by the time the CIA subsidies were terminated in 1953, U.S. support was no
longer needed because the profits from the heroin traffic was sufficient to
sustain operations.
When Luciano was originally jailed, the U.S. felt it had eliminated the world's
most effective underworld leader and the activities of the Mafia were seriously
damaged. Mussolini had been waging a war since 1924 to rid the world of the
Sicilian Mafia. Thousands of Mafia members were convicted of crimes and forced
to leave the cities and hide out in the mountains.
Mussolini's reign of terror had virtually eradicated the international drug
syndicates. Combined with the shipping surveillance during the war years, heroin
trafficking had become almost nil. Drug use in the United States, before
Luciano's release from prison, was on the verge of being entirely wiped out.
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
========================================================================
Part Four in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
The U.S. government has conducted three types of mind-control experiments:
Real life experiences, such as those used on Little Augie and the LSD
experiments in the safehouses of San Francisco and Greenwich Village.
Experiments on prisoners, such as in the California Medical Facility at
Vacaville.
Experiments conducted in both mental hospitals and the Veterans Administration
hospitals.
Such experimentation requires money, and the United States government has
funnelled funds for drug experiments through different agencies, both overtly
and covertly.
One of the funding agencies to contribute to the experimentation is the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), a unit of the U.S. Justice
Department and one of President Richard Nixon's favorite pet agencies. The Nixon
Administration was, at one time, putting together a program for detaining
youngsters who showed a tendency toward violence in "concentration" camps.
According to the Washington Post, the plan was authored by Dr. Arnold
Hutschnecker. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Robert Finch was told by
John Erlichman, Chief of Staff for the Nixon White House, to implement the
program. He proposed the screening of children of six years of age for
tendencies toward criminality. Those who failed these tests were to be destined
to be sent to the camps. The program was never implemented.
LEAA came into existence in 1968 with a huge budget to assist various U.S. law
enforcement agencies. Its effectiveness, however, was not considered too great.
After spending $6 billion, the F.B.I. reports general crime rose 31 percent and
violent crime rose 50 percent. But little accountability was required of LEAA on
how it spent its funds.
LEAA's role in the behavior modification research began at a meeting held in
1970 in Colorado Springs. Attending that meeting were Richard Nixon, Attorney
General John Mitchell, John Erlichman, H.R. Haldemann and other White House
staffers. They met with Dr. Bertram Brown, director fo the National Institute of
Mental Health, and forged a close collaboration between LEAA and the Institute.
LEAA was a product of the Justice Department and the Institute was a product of
HEW.
LEAA funded 350 projects involving medical procedures, behavior modification and
drugs for delinquency control. Money from the Criminal Justice System was being
used to fund mental health projects and vice versa. Eventually, the leadership
responsibility and control of the Institute began to deteriorate and their
scientists began to answer to LEAA alone.
The National Institute of Mental Health went on to become one of the greatest
supporters of behavior modification research. Throughout the 1960's, court
calenders became blighted with lawsuits on the part of "human guinea pigs" who
had been experimented upon in prisons and mental institutions. It was these
lawsuits which triggered the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights
investigation, headed by Senator Sam Erwin. The subcommittee's harrowing report
was virtually ignored by the news media.
Thirteen behavior modification programs were conducted by the Department of
Defense. The Department of Labor had also conducted several experiments, as well
as the National Science Foundation. The Veterans' Administration was also deeply
involved in behavior modification and mind control. Each of these agencies,
including LEAA, and the Institute, were named in secret CIA documents as those
who provided research cover for the MK-ULTRA program.
Eventually, LEAA was using much of its budget to fund experiments, including
aversive techniques and psychosurgery, which involved, in some cases,
irreversible brain surgery on normal brain tissue for the purpose of changing or
controlling behavior and/or emotions.
Senator Erwin questioned the head of LEAA concerning ethical standards of the
behavior modification projects which LEAA had been funding. Erwin was extremely
dubious about the idea of the government spending money on this kind of project
without strict guidelines and reasonable research supervision in order to
protect the human subjects. After Senator Erwin's denunciation of the funding
polices, LEAA announced that it would no longer fund medical research into
behavior modification and psychosurgery. Despite the pledge by LEAA's director,
Donald E. Santarelli, LEAA ended up funding 537 research projects dealing with
behavior modification. There is strong evidence to indicate psychosurgery was
still being used in prisons in the 1980's. Immediately after the funding
announcement by LEAA, there were 50 psychosurgical operations at Atmore State
Prison in Alabama. The inmates became virtual zombies. The operations, according
to Dr. Swan of Fisk University, were done on black prisoners who were considered
politically active.
The Veterans' Administration openly admitted that psychosurgery was a standard
procedure for treatment and not used just in experiments. The VA Hospitals in
Durham, Long Beach, New York, Syracuse and Minneapolis were known to employ
these products on a regular basis. VA clients could typically be subject to
these behavior alteration procedures against their will. The Erwin subcommittee
concluded that the rights of VA clients had been violated.
LEAA also subsidized the research and development of gadgets and techniques
useful to behavior modification. Much of the technology, whose perfection LEAA
funded, had originally been developed and made operational for use in the
Vietnam War. Companies like Bangor Punta Corporation and Walter Kidde and Co.,
through its subsidiary Globe Security System, adapted these devices to domestic
use in the U.S. ITT was another company that domesticated the warfare technology
for potential use on U.S. citizens. Rand Corporation executive Paul Baran warned
that the influx back to the United State of the Vietnam War surveillance gadgets
alone, not to mention the behavior modification hardware, could bring about "the
most effective, oppressive police state ever created".
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
================================================================================
Fifth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
One of the fascinating aspects of the scandals that plague the U.S. Government
is the fact that so often the same names appear from scandal to scandal. From
the origins of Ronald Reagan's political career, as Governor of California, Dr.
Earl Brian and Edward Meese played key advisory roles.
Dr. Brian's name has been linked to the October Surprise and is a central figure
in the government's theft of PROMIS soft ware from INSLAW. Brian's role touches
from the Cabazon Indian scandals to United Press International. He is one of
those low-profile key figures.
And, alas, his name appears again in the nation's behavior modification and mind
control experiments. Dr. Brian was Reagan's Secretary of Health when Reagan was
Governor. Dr. Brian was an advocate of state subsidies for a research center for
the study of violent behavior. The center was to begin operations by mid-1975,
and its research was intended to shed light on why people murder or rape, or
hijack aircraft. The center was to be operated by the University of California
at Los Angeles, and its primary purpose, ac cording to Dr. Brian, was to unify
scattered studies on anti-social violence and possibly even touch on socially
tolerated violence, such as football or war. Dr. Brian sought $1.3 million for
the center.
It certainly was possible that prison inmates might be used as volunteer
subjects at the center to discover the unknowns which triggered their violent
behavior. Dr. Brian's quest for the center came at the same time Governor Reagan
concluded his plans to phase the state of California out of the mental hospital
business by 1982. Reagan's plan is echoed by Governor Pete Wilson today, to
place the responsibility of rehabilitating young offenders squarely on the
shoulders of local communities.
But as the proposal became known more publicly, a swell of controversy
surrounded it. It ended in a fiasco. The inspiration for the violence center
came from three doctors in 1967, five years before Dr. Brian and Governor Reagan
unveiled their plans. Amidst urban rioting and civil protest, Doctors Sweet,
Mark and Ervin of Harvard put forward the thesis that individuals who engage in
civil disobedience possess defective or damaged brain cells. If this conclusion
were applied to the American Revolution or the Women's Rights Movement, a good
portion of American society would be labeled as having brain damage.
In a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, they stated:
"That poverty, unemployment, slum housing, and inadequate education underlie the
nation's urban riots is well known, but the obviousness of these causes may have
blinded us to the more subtle role of other possible factors, including brain
dysfunction in the rioters who engaged in arson, sniping and physical assault.
"There is evidence from several sources that brain dysfunction related to a
focal lesion plays a significant role in the violent and assaultive behavior of
thoroughly studied patients. Individuals with electroencephalographic
abnormalities in the temporal region have been found to have a much greater
frequency of behavioral abnormalities (such as poor impulse control,
assaultiveness, and psychosis) than is present in people with a normal brain
wave pattern."
Soon after the publication in the Journal, Dr. Ervin and Dr. Mark published
their book Violence and the Brain, which included the claim that there were as
many as 10 million individuals in the United States "who suffer from obvious
brain disease". They argued that the data of their book provided a strong reason
for starting a program of mass screening of Americans.
"Our greatest danger no longer comes from famine or communicable disease. Our
greatest danger lies in ourselves and in our fellow humans...we need to develop
an 'early warning test' of limbic brain function to detect those humans who have
a low threshold for impulsive violence...Violence is a public health problem,
and the major thrust of any program dealing with violence must be toward its
prevention," they wrote.
The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration funded the doctors $108,000 and
the National Institute of Mental Health kicked in another $500,000, under
pressure from Congress. They believed that psychosurgery would inevitably be
performed in connection with the program, and that, since it irreversibly
impaired people's emotional and intellectual capacities, it could be used as an
instrument of repression and social control.
The doctors wanted screening centers established throughout the nation. In
California, the publicity associated with the doctors' report, aided in the
development of The Center for the study and Reduction of Violence. Both the
state and LEAA provided the funding. The center was to serve as a model for
future facilities to be set up throughout the United States.
The Director of the Neurophyschiatric Institute and chairman of the Department
of Psychiatry at UCLA, Dr. Louis Jolyon West was selected to run the center. Dr.
West is alleged to have been a contract agent for the CIA, who, as part of a
network of doctors and scientists, gathered intelligence on hallucinogenic
drugs, including LSD, for the super-secret MK-ULTRA program. Like Captain White
(see part three of the series), West conducted LSD experiments for the CIA on
unwitting citizens in the safehouses of San Francisco. He achieved notoriety for
his injection of a massive dose of LSD into an elephant at the Oklahoma Zoo, the
elephant died when West tried to revive it by administering a combination of
drugs.
Dr. West was further known as the psychiatrist who was called upon to examine
Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin. It was on the basis of West's diagnosis
that Ruby was compelled to be treated for mental disorders and put on happy
pills. The West examination was ordered after Ruby began to say that he was part
of a right-wing conspiracy to kill President John Kennedy. Two years after the
commencement of treatment for mental disorder, Ruby died of cancer in prison.
After January 11, 1973, when Governor Reagan announced plans for the Violence
Center, West wrote a letter to the then Director of Health for California, J. M.
Stubblebine.
"Dear Stub:
"I am in possession of confidential in formation that the Army is prepared to
turn over Nike missile bases to state and local agencies for non-military
purposes. They may look with special favor on health-related applications.
"Such a Nike missile base is located in the Santa Monica Mountains, within a
half-hour's drive of the Neuropsychiatric Institute. It is accessible, but
relatively remote. The site is securely fenced, and includes various buildings
and improvements, making it suitable for prompt occupancy.
"If this site were made available to the Neurophyschiatric Institute as a
research facility, perhaps initially as an adjunct to the new Center for the
Prevention of Violence, we could put it to very good use. Comparative studies
could be carried out there, in an isolated but convenient location, of
experimental or model programs for the alteration of undesirable behavior.
"Such programs might include control of drug or alcohol abuse, modification of
chronic anti-social or impulsive aggressiveness, etc. The site could also
accommodate conferences or retreats for instruction of selected groups of
mental-health related professionals and of others (e.g., law enforcement
personnel, parole officers, special educators) for whom both demonstration and
participation would be effective modes of instruction.
"My understanding is that a direct request by the Governor, or other appropriate
officers of the State, to the Secretary of Defense (or, of course, the
President), could be most likely to produce prompt results."
Some of the planned areas of study for the Center included:
Studies of violent individuals.
Experiments on prisoners from Vacaville and Atascadero, and hyperkinetic children.
Experiments with violence-producing and violent inhibiting drugs.
Hormonal aspects of passivity and aggressiveness in boys.
Studies to discover and compare norms of violence among various ethnic groups.
Studies of pre-delinquent children.
It would also encourage law enforcement to keep computer files on pre-delinquent
children, which would make possible the treatment of children before they became
delinquents.
The purpose of the Violence Center was not just research. The staff was to
include sociologists, lawyers, police officers, clergymen and probation
officers. With the backing of Governor Reagan and Dr. Brian, West had secured
guarantees of prisoner volunteers from several California correctional
institutions, including Vacaville. Vacaville and Atascadero were chosen as the
primary sources for the human guinea pigs. These institutions had established a
reputation, by that time, of committing some of the worst atrocities in West
Coast history. Some of the experimentations differed little from what the Nazis
did in the death camps.
(NEXT: What happened to the Center?)
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
================================================================================
Sixth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Dr. Earl Brian, Governor Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Health, was adamant about
his support for mind control centers in California. He felt the behavior
modification plan of the Violence Control Centers was important in the
prevention of crime.
The Violence Control Center was actually the brain child of William Herrmann as
part of a pacification plan for California. A counter insurgency expert for
Systems Development Corporation and an advisor to Governor Reagan, Herrmann
worked with the Stand Research Institute, the RAND Corporation, and the Hoover
Center on Violence. Herrman was also a CIA agent who is now serving an eight
year prison sentence for his role in a CIA counterfeiting operation. He was also
directly linked with the Iran-Contra affair according to government records and
Herrmann's own testimony.
In 1970, Herrmann worked with Colston Westbrook as his CIA control officer when
Westbrook formed and implemented the Black Cultural Association at the Vacaville
Medical Facility, a facility which in July experienced the death of three
inmates who were forcibly subjected to behavior modification drugs. The Black
Cultural Association was ostensibly an education program designed to instill
black pride identity in prisons, the Association was really a cover for an
experimental behavior modification pilot project designed to test the
feasibility of programming unstable prisoners to become more manageable.
Westbrook worked for the CIA in Vietnam as a psychological warfare expert, and
as an advisor to the Korean equivalent of the CIA and for the Lon Nol regime in
Cambodia. Between 1966 and 1969, he was an advisor to the Vietnamese Police
Special Branch under the cover of working as an employee of Pacific Architects
and Engineers.
His "firm" contracted the building of the interrogation/torture centers in every
province of South Vietnam as part of the CIA's Phoenix Program. The program was
centered around behavior modification experiments to learn how to extract
information from prisoners of war, a direct violation of the Geneva Accords.
Westbrook's most prominent client at Vacaville was Donald DeFreeze, who be tween
1967 and 1969, had worked for the Los Angeles Police Department's Public
Disorder Intelligence unit and later became the leader of the Symbionese
Liberation Army. Many authorities now believe that the Black Cultural
Association at Vacaville was the seedling of the SLA. Westbrook even designed
the SLA logo, the cobra with seven heads, and gave De Freeze his African name of
Cinque. The SLA was responsible for the assassination of Marcus Foster,
superintendent of School in Oakland and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.
As a counterinsurgency consultant for Systems Development Corporation, a
security firm, Herrmann told the Los Angeles Times that a good computer
intelligence system "would separate out the activist bent on destroying the
system" and then develop a master plan "to win the hearts and minds of the
people". The San Francisco-based Bay Guardian, recently identified Herrmann as
an international arms dealer working with Iran in 1980, and possibly involved in
the October Surprise. Herrmann is in an English prison for counterfeiting. He
allegedly met with Iranian officials to ascertain whether the Iranians would
trade arms for hostages held in Lebanon.
The London Sunday Telegraph confirmed Herrmann's CIA connections, tracing them
from 1976 to 1986. He also worked for the FBI. This information was revealed in
his London trial.
In the 1970's, Dr. Brian and Herrmann worked together under Governor Reagan on
the Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence, and then, a decade later,
again worked under Reagan. Both men have been identified as working for Reagan
with the Iranians.
The Violence Center, however, died an agonizing death. Despite the Ervin Senate
Committee investigation and chastation of mind control, the experiments
continued. But when the Watergate scandal broke in the early 1970's, Washington
felt it was too politically risky to continue to push for mind control centers.
Top doctors began to withdraw from the proposal because they felt that there
were not enough safeguards. Even the Law Enforcement Assistance Agency, which
funded the program, backed out, stating, the proposal showed "little evidence of
established research ability of the kind of level necessary for a study of this
cope".
Eventually it became known that control of the Violence Center was not going to
rest with the University of California, but instead with the Department of
Corrections and other law enforcement officials. This information was released
publicly by the Committee Opposed to Psychiatric Abuse of Prisoners. The
disclosure of the letter resulted in the main backers of the program bowing out
and the eventual demise of the center.
Dr. Brian's final public statement on the matter was that the decision to cut
off funding represented "a callous disregard for public safety". Though the
Center was not built, the mind control experiments continue to this day.
(NEXT: What these torturous drugs do.)
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
=================================================================================
Seventh in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
The Central Intelligence Agency held two major interests in use of L.S.D. to
alter normal behavior patterns. The first interest centered around obtaining
information from prisoners of war and enemy agents, in contravention of the
Geneva Accords. The second was to deter the effectiveness of drugs used against
the enemy on the battlefield.
The MK-ULTRA program was originally run by a small number of people within the
CIA known as the Technical Services Staff (TSS). Another CIA department, the
Office of Security, also began its own testing program. Friction arose and then
infighting broke out when the Office of Security commenced to spy on TSS people
after it was learned that LSD was being tested on unwitting Americans.
Not only did the two branches disagree over the issue of testing the drug on the
unwitting, they also disagreed over the issue of how the drug was actually to be
used by the CIA. The office of Security envisioned the drug as an interrogation
weapon. But the TSS group thought the drug could be used to help destabilize
another country, it could be slipped into the food or beverage of a public
official in order to make him behave foolishly or oddly in public. One CIA
document reveals that L.S.D. could be administered right before an official was
to make a public speech.
Realizing that gaining information about the drug in real life situations was
crucial to exploiting the drug to its fullest, TSS started conducting
experiments on its own people. There was an extensive amount of
self-experimentation. The Office of Security felt the TSS group was playing with
fire, especially when it was learned that TSS was prepared to spike an annual
office Christmas party punch with LSD, the Christmas party of the CIA. L.S.D.
could produce serious insanity for periods of eight to 18 hours and possibly
longer.
One of the "victims" of the punch was agent Frank Olson. Having never had drugs
before, L.S.D. took its toll on Olson. He reported that, every automobile that
came by was a terrible monster with fantastic eyes, out to get him personally.
Each time a car passed he would huddle down against a parapet, terribly
frightened. Olson began to behave erratically. The CIA made preparation to treat
Olson at Chestnut Lodge, but before they could, Olson checked into a New York
hotel and threw himself out from his tenth story room. The CIA was ordered to
cease all drug testing.
Mind control drugs and experiments were torturous to the victims. One of three
inmates who died in Vacaville Prison in July was scheduled to appear in court in
an attempt to stop forced administration of a drug, the very drug that may have
played a role in his death.
Joseph Cannata believed he was making progress and did not need forced dosages
of the drug Haldol. The Solano County Coroner's Office said that Cannata and two
other inmates died of hyperthermia, extremely elevated body temperature. Their
bodies all had at least 108 degrees temperature when they died. The psychotropic
drugs they were being forced to take will elevate body temperature.
Dr. Ewen Cameron, working at McGill University in Montreal, used a variety of
experimental techniques, including keeping subjects unconscious for months at a
time, administering huge electroshocks and continual doses of L.S.D.
Massive lawsuits developed as a result of this testing, and many of the subjects
who suffered trauma had never agreed to participate in the experiments. Such CIA
experiments infringed upon the much-honored Nuremberg Code concerning medical
ethics. Dr. Camron was one of the members of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
L.S.D. research was also conducted at the Addiction Research Center of the U.S.
Public Health Service in Lexington, Kentucky. This institution was one of
several used by the CIA. The National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S.
Navy funded this operation. Vast supplies of L.S.D. and other hallucinogenic
drugs were required to keep the experiments going. Dr. Harris Isbell ran the
program. He was a member of the Food and Drug Administration's Advisory
Committee on the Abuse of Depressant and Stimulants Drugs. Almost all of the
inmates were black. In many cases, L.S.D. dosage was increased daily for 75
days.
Some 1500 U.S. soldiers were also victims of drug experimentation. Some claimed
they had agreed to become guinea pigs only through pressure from their superior
officers. Many claimed they suffered from severe depression and other
psychological stress.
One such soldier was Master Sergeant Jim Stanley. L.S.D. was put in Stanley's
drinking water and he freaked out. Stanley's hallucinations continued even after
he returned to his regular duties. His service record suffered, his marriage
went on the rocks and he ended up beating his wife and children. It wasn't until
17 years later that Stanley was informed by the military that he had been an
L.S.D. experiment. He sued the government, but the Supreme Court ruled no
soldier could sue the Army for the L.S.D. experiments. Justice William Brennen
disagreed with the Court decision. He wrote, "Experimentation with unknowing
human subjects is morally and legally unacceptable."
Private James Thornwell was given L.S.D. in a military test in 1961. For the
next 23 years he lived in a mental fog, eventually drowning in a Vallejo
swimming pool in 1984. Congress had set up a $625,000 trust fund for him. Large
scale L.S.D. tests on American soldiers were conducted at Aberdeen Proving
Ground in Maryland, Fort Benning, Georgia, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Dugway
Proving Ground, Utah, and in Europe and the Pacific. The Army conducted a series
of L.S.D. tests at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The purpose of the tests were
to ascertain how well soldiers could perform their tasks on the battlefield
while under the influence of L.S.D. At Fort McClellan, Alabama, 200 officers in
the Chemical Corps were given L.S.D. in order to familiarize them with the
drug's effects. At Edgewood Arsenal, soldiers were given L.S.D. and then
confined to sensory deprivation chambers and later exposed to a harsh
interrogation sessions by intelligence people. In these sessions, it was
discovered that soldiers would cooperate if promised they would be allowed to
get off the L.S.D.
In Operation Derby Hat, foreign nationals accused of drug trafficking were given
L.S.D. by the Special Purpose Team, with one subject begging to be killed in
order to end his ordeal. Such experiments were also conducted in Saigon on Viet
Cong POWs. One of the most potent drugs in the U.S. arsenal is called BZ or
quinuclidinyl benzilate. It is a long-lasting drug and brings on a litany of
psychotic experiences and almost completely isolates any person from his
environment. The main effects of BZ last up to 80 hours compared to eight hours
for L.S.D. Negative after-effects may persist for up to six weeks.
The BZ experiments were conducted on soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal for 16 years.
Many of the "victims" claim that the drug permanently affected their lives in a
negative way. It so disorientated one paratrooper that he was found taking a
shower in his uniform and smoking a cigar. BZ was eventually put in hand
grenades and a 750 pound cluster bomb. Other configurations were made for
mortars, artillery and missiles. The bomb was tested in Vietnam and CIA
documents indicate it was prepared for use by the U.S. in the event of
large-scale civilian uprisings.
In Vacaville, psychosurgery has long been a policy. In one set of cases,
experimental psychosurgery was conducted on three inmates, a black, a Chicano
and a white person. This involved the procedure of pushing electrodes deep into
the brain in order to determine the position of defective brain cells, and then
shooting enough voltage into the suspected area to kill the defective cells. One
prisoner, who appeared to be improving after surgery, was released on parole,
but ended up back in prison. The second inmate became violent and there is no
information on the third inmate.
Vacaville also administered a "terror drug" Anectine as a way of "suppressing
hazardous behavior". In small doses, Anectine serves as a muscle relaxant; in
huge does, it produces prolonged seizure of the respiratory system and a
sensation "worse than dying". The drug goes to work within 30 to 40 seconds by
paralyzing the small muscles of the fingers, toes, and eyes, and then moves into
the the intercostal muscles and the diaphragm. The heart rate subsides to 60
beats per minute, respiratory arrest sets in and the patient remains completely
conscious throughout the ordeal, which lasts two to five minutes. The
experiments were also used at Atascadero.
Several mind altering drugs were originally developed for non-psychoactive
purposes. Some of these drugs are Phenothiazine and Thorzine. The side effects
of these drugs can be a living hell. The impact includes the feeling of
drowsiness, disorientation, shakiness, dry mouth, blurred vision and an
inability to concentrate. Drugs like Prolixin are described by users as "sheer
torture" and "becoming a zombie".
The Veterans Administration Hospital has been shown by the General Accounting
Office to apply heavy dosages of psychotherapeutic drugs. One patient was taking
eight different drugs, three antipsychotic, two antianxiety, one antidepressant,
one sedative and one anti-Parkinson. Three of these drugs were being given in
dosages equal to the maximum recommended. Another patient was taking seven
different drugs. One report tells of a patient who refused to take the drug. "I
told them I don't want the drug to start with, they grabbed me and strapped me
down and gave me a forced intramuscular shot of Prolixin. They gave me Artane to
counteract the Prolixin and they gave me Sinequan, which is a kind of
tranquilizer to make me calm down, which over calmed me, so rather than letting
up on the medication, they then gave me Ritalin to pep me up."
Prolixin lasts for two weeks. One patient describes how the drug does not calm
or sedate nerves, but instead attacks from so deep inside you, you cannot locate
the source of the pain. "The drugs turn your nerves in upon yourself. Against
your will, your resistance, your resolve, are directed at your own tissues, your
own muscles, reflexes, etc.." The patient continues, "The pain grinds into your
fiber, your vision is so blurred you cannot read. You ache with restlessness, so
that you feel you have to walk, to pace. And then as soon as you start pacing,
the opposite occurs to you, you must sit and rest. Back and forth, up and down,
you go in pain you cannot locate. In such wretched anxiety you are overwhelmed
because you cannot get relief even in breathing."
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
==============================================================================
Eighth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
October 15, 1991
"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The
purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given
norm can be surgically mutilated.
"The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence,
but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective.
"Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal
orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day
armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."
These were the remarks of Dr. Jose Delgado as they appeared in the February 24,
1974 edition of the Congressional Record, No. 26., Vol. 118.
Despite Dr. Delgado's outlandish statements before Congress, his work was
financed by grants from the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Aero-Medical
Research Laboratory, and the Public Health Foundation of Boston.
Dr. Delgado was a pioneer of the technology of Electrical Stimulation of the
Brain (ESB). The New York Times ran an article on May 17, 1965 entitled Matador
With a Radio Stops Wild Bull. The story details Dr. Delgado's experiments at
Yale University School of Medicine and work in the field at Cordova, Spain. The
New York Times stated:
"Afternoon sunlight poured over the high wooden barriers into the ring, as the
brave bull bore down on the unarmed matador, a scientist who had never faced
fighting bull. But the charging animal's horn never reached the man behind the
heavy red cape. Moments before that could happen, Dr. Delgado pressed a button
on a small radio transmitter in his hand and the bull braked to a halt. Then he
pressed another button on the transmitter, and the bull obediently turned to the
right and trotted away. The bull was obeying commands in his brain that were
being called forth by electrical stimulation by the radio signals to certain
regions in which fine wires had been painlessly planted the day before."
According to Dr. Delgado, experiments of this type have also been performed on
humans. While giving a lecture on the Brain in 1965, Dr. Delgado said, "Science
has developed a new methodology for the study and control of cerebral function
in animals and humans."
The late L.L. Vasiliev, professor of physiology at the University of Leningrad
wrote in a paper about hypnotism: "As a control of the subject's condition, when
she was outside the laboratory in another set of experiments, a radio set was
used. The results obtained indicate that the method of using radio signals
substantially enhances the experimental possibilities." The professor continued
to write, "I.F. Tomaschevsky (a Russian physiologist) carried out the first
experiments with this subject at a distance of one or two rooms, and under
conditions that the participant would not know or suspect that she would be
experimented with. In other cases, the sender was not in the same house, and
someone else observed the subject's behavior. Subsequent experiments at
considerable distances were successful. One such experiment was carried out in a
park at a distance. Mental suggestions to go to sleep were complied with within
a minute."
The Russian experiments in the control of a person's mind through hypnosis and
radio waves were conducted in the 1930s, some 30 years before Dr. Delgado's bull
experiment. Dr. Vasiliev definitely demonstrated that radio transmission can
produce stimulation of the brain. It is not a complex process. In fact, it need
not be implanted within the skull or be productive of stimulation of the brain,
itself. All that is needed to accomplish the radio control of the brain is a
twitching muscle. The subject becomes hypnotized and a muscle stimulant is
implanted. The subject, while still under hypnosis, is commanded to respond when
the muscle stimulant is activated, in this case by radio transmission.
Lincoln Lawrence wrote a book entitled Were We Controlled? Lawrance wrote, "If
the subject is placed under hypnosis and mentally programmed to maintain a
determination eventually to perform one specific act, perhaps to shoot someone,
it is suggested thereafter, each time a particular muscle twitches in a certain
manner, which is then demonstrated by using the transmitter, he will increase
this determination even more strongly. As the hypnotic spell is renewed again
and again, he makes it his life's purpose to carry out this act until it is
finally achieved. Thus are the two complementary aspects of Radio-Hypnotic
Intracerebral Control (RHIC) joined to reinforce each other, and perpetuate the
control, until such time as the controlled behavior is called for. This is done
by a second session with the hypnotist giving final instructions. These might be
reinforced with radio stimulation in more frequent cycles. They could even carry
over the moments after the act to reassure calm behavior during the escape
period, or to assure that one conspirator would not indicate that he was aware
of the co-conspirator's role, or that he was even acquainted with him."
RHIC constitutes the joining of two well known tools, the radio part and the
hypnotism part. People have found it difficult to accept that an individual can
be hypnotized to perform an act which is against his moral principles. Some
experiments have been conducted by the U.S. Army which show that this popular
perception is untrue. The chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate
University, Dr. Estabrooks, has stated, "I can hypnotize a man without his
knowledge or consent into committing treason against the United States."
Estabrooks was one of the nation's most authoritative sources in the hypnotic
field. The psychologist told officials in Washington that a mere 200 well
trained hypnotists could develop an army of mind-controlled sixth columnists in
wartime United States. He laid out a scenario of an enemy doctor placing
thousands of patients under hypnotic mind control, and eventually programming
key military officers to follow his assignment. Through such maneuvers, he said,
the entire U.S. Army could be taken over. Large numbers of saboteurs could also
be created using hypnotism through the work of a doctor practicing in a
neighborhood or foreign born nationals with close cultural ties with an enemy
power.
Dr. Estabrooks actually conducted experiments on U.S. soldiers to prove his
point. Soldiers of low rank and little formal education were placed under
hypnotism and their memories tested. Surprisingly, hypnotists were able to
control the subjects' ability to retain complicated verbal information. J. G.
Watkins followed in Estabrooks steps and induced soldiers of lower rank to
commit acts which conflicted not only with their moral code, but also the
military code which they had come to accept through their basic training. One of
the experiments involved placing a normal, stable army private in a deep trance.
Watkins was trying to see if he could get the private to attack a superior
officer, a cardinal sin in the military. While the private was in a deep trance,
Watkins told him that the officer sitting across from him was an enemy soldier
who was going to attempt to kill him. In the private's mind, it was a kill or be
killed situation. The private immediately jumped up and grabbed the officer by
the throat. The experiment was repeated several times, and in one case the man
who was hypnotized and the man who was attacked were very close friends. The
results were always the same. In one experiment, the hypnotized subject pulled
out a knife and nearly stabbed another person.
Watkins concluded that people could be induced to commit acts contrary to their
morality if their reality was distorted by the hypnotism. Similar experiments
were conducted by Watkins using WACs exploring the possibility of making
military personnel divulge military secrets. A related experiment had to be
discontinued because a researcher, who had been one of the subjects, was
exposing numerous top-secret projects to his hypnotist, who did not have the
proper security clearance for such information. The information was divulged
before an audience of 200 military personnel.
(NEXT: School for Assassins)
Mind Control: a Navy school for assassins
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
================================================================================
Ninth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Tuesday, October 22, 1991
In mans quest to control the behavior of humans, there was a great breakthrough
established by Pavlov, who devised a way to make dogs salivate on cue. He
perfected his conditioning response technique by cutting holes in the cheeks of
dogs and measured the amount they salivated in response to different stimuli.
Pavlov verified that "quality, rate and frequency of the salivation changed
depending upon the quality, rate and frequency of the stimuli."
Though Pavlov's work falls far short of human mind control, it did lay the
groundwork for future studies in mind and behavior control of humans. John B.
Watson conducted experiments in the United States on an 11-month-old infant.
After allowing the infant to establish a rapport with a white rat, Watson began
to beat on the floor with an iron bar every time the infant came in contact with
the rat. After a time, the infant made the association between the appearance of
the rat and the frightening sound, and began to cry every time the rat came into
view. Eventually, the infant developed a fear of any type of small animal.
Watson was the founder of the behaviorist school of psychology.
"Give me the baby, and I'll make it climb and use its hands in constructing
buildings or stone or wood. I'll make it a thief, a gunman or a dope fiend. The
possibilities of shaping in any direction are almost endless. Even gross
differences in anatomical structure limits are far less than you may think. Make
him a deaf mute, and I will build you a Helen Keller. Men are built, not born,"
Watson proclaimed. His psychology did not recognize inner feelings and thoughts
as legitimate objects of scientific study, he was only interested in overt
behavior.
Though Watson's work was the beginning of mans attempts to control human
actions, the real work was done by B.F. Skinner, the high priest of the
behaviorists movement. The key to Skinner's work was the concept of operant
conditioning, which relied on the notion of reinforcement, all behavior which is
learned is rooted in either a positive or negative response to that action.
There are two corollaries of operant conditioning" Aversion therapy and
desensitization.
Aversion therapy uses unpleasant reinforcement to a response which is
undesirable. This can take the form of electric shock, exposing the subject to
fear producing situations, and the infliction of pain in general. It has been
used as a way of "curing" homosexuality, alcoholism and stuttering.
Desensitization involves forcing the subject to view disturbing images over and
over again until they no longer produce any anxiety, then moving on to more
extreme images, and repeating the process over again until no anxiety is
produced. Eventually, the subject becomes immune to even the most extreme
images. This technique is typically used to treat people's phobias. Thus, the
violence shown on T.V. could be said to have the unsystematic and unintended
effect of desensitization.
Skinnerian behaviorism has been accused of attempting to deprive man of his free
will, his dignity and his autonomy. It is said to be intolerant of uncertainty
in human behavior, and refuses to recognize the private, the ineffable, and the
unpredictable. It sees the individual merely as a medical, chemical and
mechanistic entity which has no comprehension of its real interests.
Skinner believed that people are going to be manipulated. "I just want them to
be manipulated effectively," he said. He measured his success by the absence of
resistance and counter control on the part of the person he was manipulating. He
thought that his techniques could be perfected to the point that the subject
would not even suspect that he was being manipulated.
Dr. James V. McConnel, head of the Department of Mental Health Research at the
University of Michigan, said, "The day has come when we can combine sensory
deprivation with the use of drugs, hypnosis, and the astute manipulation of
reward and punishment to gain almost absolute control over an individual's
behavior. We want to reshape our society drastically."
A U.S. Navy psychologist, who claims that the Office of Naval Intelligence had
taken convicted murderers from military prisons, used behavior modification
techniques on them, and then relocated them in American embassies throughout the
world. Just prior to that time, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee had
censured the CIA for its global political assassination plots, including plots
against Fidel Castro. The Navy psychologist was Lt. Commander Thomas Narut of
the U.S. Regional Medical Center in Naples, Italy. The information was divulged
at an Oslo NATO conference of 120 psychologists from the eleven nation alliance.
According to Dr. Narut, the U.S. Navy was an excellent place for a researcher to
find "captive personnel" whom they could could use as guinea pigs in
experiments. The Navy provided all the funding necessary, according to Narut.
Dr. Narut, in a question and answer session with reporters from many nations,
revealed how the Navy was secretly programming large numbers of assassins. He
said that the men he had worked with for the Navy were being prepared for
commando-type operations, as well as covert operations in U.S. embassies
worldwide. He described the men who went through his program as "hit men and
assassins" who could kill on command.
Careful screening of the subjects was accomplished by Navy psychologists through
the military records, and those who actually received assignments where their
training could be utilized, were drawn mainly from submarine crews, the
paratroops, and many were convicted murderers serving military prison sentences.
Several men who had been awarded medals for bravery were drafted into the
program.
The assassins were conditioned through "audio-visual desensitization". The
process involved the showing of films of people being injured or killed in a
variety of ways, starting with very mild depictions, leading up to the more
extreme forms of mayhem. Eventually, the subjects would be able to detach their
feelings even when viewing the most horrible of films. The conditioning was most
successful when applied to "passive-aggressive" types, and most of these ended
up being able to kill without any regrets. The prime indicator of violent
tendencies was the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Dr. Narut knew
of two Navy programming centers, the neuropsychiatric laboratory in San Diego
and the U.S. Regional Medical Center in Italy, where he worked.
During the audio-visual desensitization programming, restraints were used to
force the subject to view the films. A device was used on the subjects eyelids
to prevent him from blinking. Typically, the preliminary film was on an African
youth being ritualistically circumcised with a dull knife and without any
anesthetic. The second film showed a sawmill scene in which a man accidentally
cut off his fingers.
In addition to the desensitization films, the potential assassins underwent
programming to create prejudicial attitude in the men, to think of their future
enemies, especially the leaders of these countries, as sub-human. Films and
lectures were presented demeaning the culture and habits of the people of the
countries where it had been decided they would be sent.
After his NATO lecture, Dr. Narut disappeared. He could not be located. Within a
week of so after the lecture, the Pentagon issued an emphatic denial that the
U.S. Navy had "engaged in psychological training or other types of training of
personnel as assassins." They disavowed the programming centers in San Diego and
Naples and stated they were unable to locate Narut, but did provide confirmation
that he was a staff member of the U.S. Regional Medical Center in Naples.
Dr. Alfred Zitani, an American delegate to the Oslo conference, did verify
Narut's remarks and they were published in the Sunday Times.
Sometime later, Dr. Narut surfaced again in London and recanted his remarks,
stating that he was "talking in theoretical and not practical terms." Shortly
thereafter, the U.S. Naval headquarters in London issued a statement indicating
that Dr. Narut's remarks at the NATO conference should be discounted because he
had "personal problems". Dr. Narut never made any further public statements
about the program.
During the NATO conference in Oslo, Dr. Narut had remarked that the reason he
was divulging the information was because he believed that the information was
coming out anyway. The doctor was referring to the disclosure by a Congressional
subcommittee which were then appearing in the press concerning various CIA
assassination plots. However, what Dr. Narut had failed to realize at the time,
was that the Navy's assassination plots were not destined to be revealed to the
public at that time.
Soviets, U.S. both using mind control methods
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
=================================================================================
Tenth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
November 5, 1991
There were three scientists who pioneered the work of using an electromagnetic
field to control human behavior. Their work began 25 years ago. These three were
Dr. Jose Delgado, psychology professor at Yale University; Dr. W. Ross Adey, a
physiologist at the Brain Research Institute at UCLA; and Dr. Wilder Penfield, a
Canadian.
Dr. Penfield's experiments consisted of the implantation of electrodes deep into
the cortexes of epilepsy patients who were to undergo surgery; he was able to
drastically improve the memories of these patients through electrical
stimulation. Dr. Adey implanted transmitters in the brains of cats and
chimpanzees that could send signals to a receiver regarding the electrical
activity of the brain; additional radio signals were sent back into the brains
of the animals which modified their behavior at the direction of the doctor. Dr.
Delgado was able to stop and turn a charging bull through the use of an
implanted radio receiver.
Other experiments using platinum, gold and stainless steel electrode implants
enabled researchers to induce total madness in cats, put monkeys into a stupor,
or to set human beings jerking their arms up and down. Much of Delgado's work
was financed by the CIA through phony funding conduits masking themselves as
charitable organizations.
Following the successes of Delgado's work, the CIA set up their own research
program in the field of electromagnetic behavior modification under the code
name Sleeping Beauty. With the guidance of Dr. Ivor Browning, a laboratory was
set up in New Mexico, specializing in working with the hypothalamus or "sweet
spot" of the brain. Here it was found that stimulating this area could produce
intense euphoria.
Dr. Browning was able to wire a radio receiver-amplifier into the "sweet spot"
of a donkey which picked up a five-micro-amp signal, such that he could create
intense happiness in the animal. Using the jolts of happiness as an "electronic
carrot", Browning was able to send the donkey up a 2000 foot New Mexico mountain
and back to its point of origin. When the donkey was proceeding up the path
toward its destination, it was rewarded; when it deviated, the signal stopped.
"You've never seen a donkey so eager to keep on course in your whole life," Dr.
Browning exclaimed.
The CIA utilized the electronic carrot technique in getting trained pigeons to
fly miniature microphone-transmitters to the ledge of a KGB safe house where the
devices monitored conversations for months. There was a move within the CIA to
conduct further experiments on humans, foreigners and prisoners, but officially
the White House vetoed the idea as being unethical.
In May 1989, it was learned by the CIA that the KGB was subjecting people
undergoing interrogation to electromagnetic fields, which produced a panic
reaction, thereby bringing them closer to breaking down under questioning. The
subjects were not told that they were being placed under the influence of these
beams. A few years earlier, Dr. Ross Adey released photographs and a fact sheet
concerning what he called the Russian Lida machine. This consisted of a small
transmitter emitting 10-hertz waves which makes the subject susceptibile to
hypnotic suggestion. The device utilized the outmoded vacuum-tube design.
American POWs in Korea have indicated that similar devices had been used for
interrogation purposes in POW camps.
The general, long term goal of the CIA was to find out whether or not mind
control could be achieved through the use of a precise, external,
electromagnetic beam. The electrical activity of the brain operates within the
range of 100 hertz frequency. This spectrum is called ELF or Extremely Low
Frequency range. ELF waves carry very little ionizing radiation and very low
heat, and therefore do not manifest gross, observable physical effects on living
organisms. Published Soviet experiments with ELFs reveal that there was a marked
increase in psychiatric and central nervous system disorders and symptoms of
stress for sailors working close to ELF generators.
In the mid-1970s, American interest in combining EMR techniques with hypnosis
was very prominent. Plans were on file to develop these techniques through
experiments on human volunteers. The spoken word of the hypnotist could be
conveyed by modulated electromagnetic energy directly into the subconscious
parts of the human brain without employing any technical devices for receiving
or transacting the messages and without the person exposed to such influence
having a chance to control the information input consciously.
In California, it was discovered by Dr. Adey that animal brain waves could be
altered directly by ELF fields. It was found that monkey brains would fall in
phase with ELF waves. These waves could easily pass through the skull, which
normally protected the central nervous system from outside influence.
In San Leandro, Dr. Elizabeth Rauscher, director of Technic Research Laboratory,
has been doing ELF/brain research with human subjects for some time. One of the
frequencies produces nausea for more than an hour. Another frequency, she calls
it the marijuana frequency, gets people laughing. "Give me the money and three
months,"she says, "and I'll be able to affect the behavior of eighty percent of
the people in this town without their knowing it."
In the past, the Soviet Union has invested large sums of time and money
investigating microwaves. In 1952, while the Cold War was showing no signs of
thawing, there was a secret meeting at the Sandia Corporation in New Mexico
between U.S. and Soviet scientists involving the exchange of information
regarding the biological hazards and safety levels of EMR. The Soviets possessed
the greater preponderance of information, and the American scientists were
unwilling to take it seriously. In subsequent meetings, the Soviet scientists
continued to stress the seriousness of the risks, while American scientists
downplayed their importance. Shortly after the last Sandia meeting, the Soviets
began directing a microwave beam at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, using embassy
workers as guinea pigs for low-level EMR experiments. Washington, D.C. was oddly
quiescent, regarding the Moscow embassy bombardment. Discovered in 1962, the
Moscow signal was investigated by the CIA, which hired a consultant, Milton
Zaret, and code named the research Project Pandora. According to Zaret, the
Moscow signal was composed of several frequencies, and was focussed precisely
upon the Ambassador's office. The intensity of the bombardment was not made
public, but when the State Department finally admitted the existence of the
signal, it announced that it was fairly low.
There was consensus among Soviet EMR researchers that a beam such as the Moscow
signal was destined to produced blurred vision and loss of mental concentration.
The Boston Globe reported that the American ambassador had not only developed a
leukemia-like blood disease, but also suffered from bleeding eyes and chronic
headaches. Under the CIA's Project Pandora, monkeys were brought into the
embassy and exposed to the Moscow signal; they were found to have developed
blood composition anomalies and unusual chromosome counts. Embassy personnel
were found to have a 40 percent higher than average white blood cell count.
While Operation Pandora's data gathering proceeded, embassy personnel continued
working in the facility and were not informed of the bombardment until 10 years
later. Embassy employees were eventually granted a 20 percent hardship allowance
for their service in an unhealthful post. Throughout the period of bombardment,
the CIA used the opportunity to gather data on psychological and biological
effects of the beam on American personnel.
The U.S. government began to examine the affects of the Moscow signal. The job
was turned over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA
is now developing electromagnetic weaponry. The man in charge of the DARPA
program, Dr. Jack Verona, is so important and so secretive that he doesn't even
return President George Bush's telephone calls.
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
===============================================================================
Eleventh in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Friday, November 8, 1991
The American public was never informed that the military had planned to develop
electromagnetic weapons until 1982, when the revelation appeared in a technical
Air Force magazine.
The magazine article stated, "....specifically generated radio-frequency
radiation (RFR) fields may pose powerful and revolutionary anti-personnel
military trends." The article indicated that that it would be very easy to use
electromagnetic fields to disrupt the human brain because the brain, itself, was
an electrically mediated organ. Iftfurther indicated that a rapidly scanning RFR
system would have a stunning or killing capability over a large area. The system
was developable.
Navy Captain Dr. Paul E. Taylor read a paper at the Air University Center for
Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
Dr. Taylor was responsible for the Navy's Radiation Laboratory and had been
studying radiation effects on humans. In his paper, Dr. Taylor stated, "The
ability of individuals to function (as soldiers) could be degraded to such a
point that would be combat ineffective." The system was so sophisticated that it
employed microwaves and millimeter waves and was transportable by a large truck.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the South Bay, are working on the
development of a "brain bomb". A bomb could be dropped in the middle of a
battlefield which would produce microwaves, incapacitating the minds of soldiers
within a circumscribed area.
Applications of microwave technology in espionage were available for over 25
years. In a meeting in Berkeley of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science as early as 1965, Professor J. Anthony Deutsch of New York
University, provided an important segment of research in the field of memory
control. In layman terms, Professor Deutsch indicated that the mind is a
transmitter and if too much information is received, like too many vehicles on a
crowded freeway, the brain ceases to transmit. The Professor indicated that an
excess of acetyl choline in the brain can interfere with the memory process and
control. He indicated excess amounts of acetyl choline can be artificially
produced, through both the administration of drugs or through the use of radio
waves. The process is called Electronic Dissolution of Memory (EDOM). The memory
transmission can be stopped for as long as the radio signal continues.
As a result, the awareness of the person skips over those minutes during which
he is subjected to the radio signal. Memory is distorted, and time-orientation
is destroyed.
According to Lincoln Lawrence, author of Were We Controlled, EDOM is now
operational. "There is already in use a small EDOM generator/transmitter which
can be concealed on the body of the person. Contact with this person, a casual
handshake or even just a touch, transmits a tiny electronic charge plus an
ultra-sonic signal tone which for a short period will disturb the
time-orientation of the person affected....it can be a potent weapon for
hopelessly confusing evidence in the investigation of a crime."
Thirty years ago, Allen Frey discovered that microwaves of 300 to 3000 megahertz
could be "heard" by people, even if they were deaf, if pulsed at a certain rate.
Appearing to be originating just in back of the head, the sound boomed, clicked,
hissed or buzzed, depending upon the frequency. Later research has shown that
the perception of the waves take place just in front of the ears. The microwaves
causes pressure waves in the brain tissue, and this phenomenon vibrates the
sound receptors in the inner ear through the bone structure. Some microwaves are
capable of directly stimulating the nerve cells of the auditory pathways. This
has been confirmed with experiments with rats, in which the sound registers 120
decibels, which is equal to the volume of a nearby jet during takeoff. Aside
from having the capability of causing pain and preventing auditory
communication, a more subtle effect was demonstrated at the Walter Reed Army
Institute of Research by Dr. Joseph C. Sharp. Dr. Sharp, himself, was the
subject of an experiment in which pulsed microwave audiograms, or the microwave
analog of the sound vibrations of spoken words, were delivered to his brain in
such a way that he was able to understand the words that were spoken. Military
and undercover uses of such a device might include driving a subject crazy with
inner voices in order to discredit him, or conveying undetectable instructions
to a programmed assassin.
But the technology has been carried even a step further. It has been
demonstrated by Dr. Ross Adey that microwaves can be used to directly bring
about changes in the electrical patterns of different parts of the brain. His
experiments showed that he could achieve the same mind control over animals as
Dr. Delgado did in the bull incident. Dr. Delgado used brain implants in his
animals, Dr. Adey used microwave devices without preconditioning. He made
animals act and look like electronic toys.
Mind control origins found in Nazi Germany
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
=================================================================================
Twelfth in a Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Tuesday, November 19, 1991
At the conclusion of World War Two, American investigators learned that Nazi
doctors at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany had been conducting mind
control experiments on inmates. They experimented with hypnosis and with the
drug mescaline.
Mescaline is a quasi-synthetic extract of the peyote cactus, and is very similar
to LSD in the hallucinations which it produces. Though they did not achieve the
degree of success they had desired, the SS interrogators in conjunction with the
Dachau doctors were able to extract the most intimate secrets from the prisoners
when the inmates were given very high doses of mescaline.
There were fatal mind control experiments conducted at Auschwitz. The
experiments there were described by one informant as "brainwashing with
chemicals". The informant said the Gestapo wasn't satisfied with extracting
information by torture. "So the next question was, why don't we do it like the
Russians, who have been able to get confessions of guilt at their show trials?"
They tried various barbiturates and morphine derivatives. After prisoners were
fed a coffee-like substance, two of them died in the night and others died
later.
The Dachau mescaline experiments were written up in a lengthy report issued by
the U.S. Naval Technical Mission, whose job it was at the conclusion of the war
to scour all of Europe for every shred of industrial and scientific material
that had been produced by the Third Reich. It was as a result of this report
that the U.S. Navy became interested in mescaline as an interrogation tool. The
Navy initiated Project Chatter in 1947, the same year the Central Intelligence
Agency was formed. The Chatter format included developing methods for acquiring
information from people against their will, but without inflicting harm or pain.
At the conclusion of the war, the OSS was designated as the investigative unit
for the International Military Tribunal, which was to become known as the
Nuremberg Trials. The purpose of Nuremberg was to try the principal Nazi
leaders. Some Nazis were on trial for their experiments, and the U.S. was using
its own "truth drugs" on these principal Nazi prisoners, namely Goring,
Ribbentrop, Speer and eight others. The Justice in charge of the tribunal had
given the OSS permission to use the drugs.
The Dachau doctors who performed the mescaline experiments also were involved in
aviation medicine. The aviation experiments at Dachau fascinated Heinrich
Himmler. Himmler followed the progress of the tests, studied their findings and
often suggested improvements. The Germans had a keen interest in several medical
problems in the field of flying, they were interested in preventing pilots from
slowly becoming unconscious as a result of breathing the thin air of the high
altitudes and there was interest in enhancing night vision.
The main research in this area was at the Institute of Aviation in Munich, which
had excellent laboratories. The experiments in relationship to the Institute
were conducted at Dachau. Inmates had been immersed in tubs of ice water with
instruments placed in their orifices in order to monitor their painful deaths.
Dr. Hubertus Strughold, who ran the German aviation medicine team, confirmed
that he had heard humans were used for the Dachau experiments. Hidden in a cave
in Hallein were files recording the Dachau experiments.
On May 15, 1941, Dr. Sigmund Rascher wrote a letter to Himmler requesting
permission to use the Dachau inmates for experiments on the physiology of high
altitudes. Rascher lamented the fact that no such experiments have been done
using human subjects. "The experiments are very dangerous and we cannot attract
volunteers," he told Himmler. His request was approved.
Dachau was filled with Communists and Social Democrats, Jews, Jehovah's
Witnesses, Gypsies, clergymen, homosexuals, and people critical of the Nazi
government. Upon entering Dachau, prisoners lost all legal status, their hair
was shaved off, all their possessions confiscated, they were poorly fed, and
they were used as slaves for both the corporations and the government. The SS
guards were brutal and sadistic. The idea to test subjects at Dachau was really
the brain child of Erich Hippke, chief surgeon of the Luftwaffe.
Between March and August of 1942 extensive experiments were conducted at Dachau
regarding the limits of human endurance at high altitudes. These experiments
were conducted for the benefit of the German Air Force. The experiments took
place in a low-pressure chamber in which altitudes of up to 68,000 feet could be
simulated. The subjects were placed in the chamber and the altitude was raised,
many inmates died as a result. The survivors often suffered serious injury. One
witness at the Nuremberg trails, Anton Pacholegg, who was sent to Dachau in
1942, gave an eyewitness account of the typical pressure test:
"The Luftwaffe delivered a cabinet constructed of wood and metal. It was
possible in the cabinet to either decrease or increase the air pressure. You
could observe through a little window the reaction of the subject inside the
chamber. The purpose of these experiments was to test human energy and the
subject's capacity...to take large amounts of pure oxygen, and then to test his
reaction to a gradual decrease in oxygen. I have personally seen through the
observation window of the chamber when a prisoner inside would stand a vacuum
until his lungs ruptured. Some experiments gave men such pressure in their heads
that they would go mad and pull out their hair in an effort to relieve the
pressure. They would tear their heads and face with their fingers and nails in
an attempt to maim themselves in their madness. They would beat the walls with
their hands and head and scream in an effort to relieve pressure in their
eardrums. These cases of extreme vacuums generally ended in the death of the
subjects."
The former prisoner also testified,
"An extreme experiment was so certain to result in death that in many instances the chamber was used for
routine execution purposes rather than an experiment."
A minimum 200 prisoners were known to have died in these experiments.
The doctors directly involved with the research held very high positions: Karl
Brandt was Hitler's personal doctor; Oskar Schroeder was the Chief of the
Medical Services of the Luftwaffe; Karl Gebhardt was Chief Surgeon on the Staff
of the Reich Physician SS and Police and German Red Cross President; Joachim
Mrugowsky was Chief of the Hygienic Institute of the Waffen SS; Helmut
Poppendick was a senior colonel in the SS and Chief of the Personal Staff of the
Reich Physicians SS and Police; Siegfried Ruff was Director of the Department of
Aviation Medicine.
The first human guinea pig was a 37 year old Jew in good health. Himmler invited
40 top Luftwaffe officers to view a movie of an inmate dying in the pressure
chamber. After the pressure chamber tests, the cold treatment experiments began.
The experiments consisted of immersing inmates in freezing water while their
vital signs were monitored. The goal was to discover the cause of death. Heart
failure was the answer. An inmate described the procedures:
"The basins were filled with water and ice was added until the water measured
37.4 F and the experimental subjects were either dressed in a flying suit or
were placed in the water naked. The temperature was measured rectally and
through the stomach. The lowering of the body temperature to 32 degrees was
terrible for experimental subjects. At 32 degrees the subject lost
consciousness. They were frozen to 25 degrees. The worst experiment was
performed on two Russian officer POWs. They were placed in the basin naked. Hour
after hour passed, and while usually after a short time, 60 minutes, freezing
had set in, these two Russians were still conscious after two hours. After the
third hour one Russian told the other, 'Comrade, tell that officer to shoot us.'
The other replied, 'Don't expect any mercy from this Fascist dog.' Then they
shook hands and said goodbye. The experiment lasted at least five hours until
death occurred.
Dry freezing experiments were also carried out a Dachau. One subject was put
outdoors on a stretcher at night when it was extremely cold. While covered with
a linen sheet, a bucket of cold water was poured over him every hour. He was
kept outdoors undersub-freezing conditions. In subsequent experiments, subjects
were simply left outside naked in a court under freezing conditions for hours.
Himmler gave permission to move the experiments to Auschwitz, because it was
more private and because the subjects of the experiment would howl all night as
they froze. The physical pain of freezing was terrible. The subjects died by
inches, heartbeat became totally irregular, breathing difficulties and lung
endema resulted, hands and feet became frozen white."
As the Germans began to lose the war, the aviation doctors began to keep their
names from appearing in Himmler's files for fear of future recriminations.
America made it to the moon with Dachau research
By Harry V. Martin and David Caul
==================================================================================
Last of a Thirteen Part Series
Copyright, Napa Sentinel, 1991
Friday, November 22, 1991
The Nazi doctors who experimented on the inmates of prison camps during World
War Two were tried for murder at the Nuremberg Tribunal. The accused were
educated, trained physicians, they did not kill in anger or in malice, they were
creating a science of death.
Ironically, in 1933, the Nazi's passed a law for the protection of animals. The
law cited the prevention of cruelty and indifference to animals as one of the
highest moral values of a people, animal experimentation was unthinkable, but
human experimentations were acceptable. The victims of the crime of these
doctors numbered into the thousands.
In 1953, while the Central Intelligence Agency was still conducting mind control
and behavior modification on unwitting humans in this country, the United States
signed the Nuremberg Code, a code born out of the ashes of war and human
suffering. The document was a solemn promise never to tolerate such human
atrocities again. The Code maintains three fundamental principles:
The subjects of any experimentation must be volunteers who thoroughly
understand the purpose and the dangers of the experiments. They must be free
to give consent and the consent must be without pressure and they must be free
to quit the experiments at any time.
The experiments must be likely to yield knowledge which is valuable to
everyone. The knowledge must be such that it could not be gained in any other
way.
The experiments must be conducted by only the most competent doctors, and they
must exercise extreme care.
The Nazi aviation experiments met none of these conditions. Most inmates at
Dachau knew that the experiments in the pressure chamber were fatal. From the
very beginning, control of the experiments was largely in the hands of the SS,
which was later judged to be a criminal organization by the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Despite our lessons from Nuremberg and the death camps, the CIA, U.S. Navy and
the U.S. Army Chemical Corps targeted specific groups of people for
experimentation who were not able to resist, prisoners, mental patients,
foreigners, ethnic minorities, sex deviants, the terminally ill, children and
U.S. military personnel and prisoners of war. They violated the Nuremberg Code
for conducting and subsidizing experiments on unwitting citizens. The CIA began
its mind control projects in 1953, the very year that the U.S. signed the
Nuremberg Code and pledged with the international community of nations to
respect basic human rights and to prohibit experimentation on captive
populations without full and free consent.
Dr. Cameron, a CIA operative, was one of the worst offenders against the Code,
yet he was a member of the Nuremberg Tribunal, with full knowledge of its
testimony. In 1973, a three judge court in Michigan ruled, "...experimental
psychosurgery, which is irreversible and intrusive, often leads to the blunting
of emotions, the deadening of memory, the reduction of affect, and limits the
ability to generate new ideas. Its potential for injury to the creativity of the
individual is great and can infringe on the right of the individual to be free
from interference with his mental process.
"The state's interest in performing psychosurgery and the legal ability of the
involuntarily detained mental patient to give consent, must bow to the First
Amendment, which protects the generation and free flow of ideas from unwarranted
interference with one's mental processes." Citing the Nuremberg Code, the court
found that "the very nature of the subject's incarceration diminishes the
capacity to consent to psychosurgery." In 1973, the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts enacted regulations which would require informed written consent
from voluntary patients before electroshock treatment could be performed.
Senator Sam Ervin's Committee lashed out bitterly at the mind control and
behavior modification experiments and ordered them discontinued, they were not.
But the New England Journal of Medicine states, that the consent provisions are
"no more than an elaborate ritual." They called it "a device that when the
subject is uneducated and uncomprehending, confers no more than a semblance of
propriety on human experimentation."
The Nuremberg Tribunal brought to light that some of the most respected figures
in the medical profession were involved in the vast crime network of the SS.
Only 23 persons were charged with criminal activity in this area, despite the
fact that hundreds of medical personnel were involved. The defendants were
charged with crimes against humanity. They were found guilty of planning and
executing experiments on humans without their consent, in a cruel and brutal
manner which involved severe torture, deliberate murder and with the full
knowledge of the gravity of their deeds. Only seven of the defendants were
sentenced to death and hanged, others received life sentences. Five who were
involved in the experiments were not tried. Ernest Grawitz committed suicide,
Carl Clauberg was tried in the Soviet Union, Josef Mengele escaped to South
America and was later captured by Israeli agents, Horst Schumann disappeared and
Siegmund Rascher was executed by Himmler.
There were 200 German medical doctors conducting these medical experiments. Most
of these doctors were friends of the United States before the war, and despite
their inhuman experiments, the U.S. attempted to rebuild a relationship with
them after the war. The knowledge the Germans had accumulated at the expense of
human life and suffering, was considered a "booty of war", by the Americans and
the Russians.The Americans tracked down Dr. Strughold, the aviation doctor who
was in charge of the Dachau experiments. With full knowledge that the
experiments were conducted on captive humans, the U.S. recruited the doctors to
work for them. General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his personal approval to
exploit the work and research of the Nazi's in the death camps.
Within weeks of Eisenhower's order, many of these notorious doctors were working
for the U.S. Army at Heidelberg. Army teams scoured Europe for scientific
experimental apparatus such as pressure chambers, compressors, G-force machines,
giant centrifuges, and electron microscopes. These doctors were wined and dined
by the U.S. Army while most of Germany's post-war citizens virtually starved.
The German doctors were brought to the U.S. and went to work for Project
Paperclip. All these doctors had been insulated against war crime charges. The
Nuremberg prosecutors were shocked that U.S. authorities were using the German
doctors despite their criminal past.
Under the leadership of Strughold, 34 scientists accepted contracts from Project
Paperclip, and were moved to Randolph Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas. The
authorization to hire these Nazi scientists came directly for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. The top military brass stated that they wished to exploit these rare
minds. Project Paperclip, ironically, would use Nazi doctors to develop methods
of interrogating German prisoners of war.
As hostilities began to build after the war between the Americans and the
Russians, the U.S. imported as many as 1000 former Nazi scientists.
In 1969, Americans landed on the moon, and two groups of scientist in the
control center shared the credit, the rocket team from Peenemunde, Germany,
under the leadership of Werner von Braun, these men had perfected the V-2s which
were built in the Nordhausen caves where 20,000 slave laborers from prison camp
Dora had been worked to death. The second group were the space doctors, lead by
71-year-old Dr. Hubertus Strughold, whose work was pioneered in Experimental
Block No. 5 of the Dachau concentration camp and the torture and death of
hundreds of inmates. The torture chambers that was used to slowly kill the
prisoners of the Nazi's were the test beds for the apparatus that protected Neil
Armstrong from harm, from lack of oxygen, and pressure, when he walked on the
moon.
=================================================================================
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Napa Sentinel would like to acknowledge the exceptional
contribution of radio commentator David Emory and his extensive archives. Other
source material included:
Acid Dreams by Martin Lee & Bruce Shlain
From the Belly of the Beast, Jack Henry Abbott
Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118, Feb. 24, 1974, testimony of Jose Delgado
The Glass House Tapes, by Louis Tackwood
The Great Heroin Coup, by Henrik Kruger
Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, 1974. Sam Ervin Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional 'Rights
The Last Hero, Wild Bill Donovan, by Anthony Cave Brown
Mind Control, by Peter Schrag
The Mind Stealers, by Samuel Chavkin
Matador with a radio stops wild bull, New York Times, May 17, 1965
Operation Mind Control, Water Bowart
The Phoenix Program, Douglas Valentine
The Physical Control of the Mind, Jose M. R. Delgado, MD
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred McCoy
Role of Brain Disease in Riots and urban Violence, by Vernon H. Mark, Frank R. Ervin, and William H. Sweet. Journal of the American Medical Association, September 11, 1967.
San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 28, 1991
Convict Talks of 1984 Arms Talks With Iran, San Francisco Chronicle, December
29, 1986
San Francisco Chronicle, January 13, 1973
Guy Wright Column, San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 1987
Sunday Times, July 1975.
Violence and the Brain, by Vernon H. Mark and Frank R. Ervin
War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology, by Peter Watson
Were We Controlled? - by Lincoln Lawrence
Why Was Patricia Hearst Kidnapped? - by Mae Brussell, The Realist.
and other select readings.
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