Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD

I was inducted at some point around the age of 4 in the late 1960's. Sometime between ages 4 and 5 I was given LSD in a hospital setting. I have vivid memories of the hallucinatory effect, how the nurse's cap turned into a rainbow colored snake and then a feather boa. Not all of us are so damaged that we cannot function or contribute positively to society, and we do, despite the ostracism, and cold denial with which our stories are commonly met. It continues to be a long wait for researchers to catch up and begin exposing these horrendous crimes. We need good researchers too, because there is often more discrediting disinformation than good available, especially on the Internet.  

I am aware of at least 2 FOIA documents mentioning work on children, including one that describes how two girls were hypno-programmed to arm a bomb. As another commenter mentioned, we also have survivor testimony before Congress (1995 radiation hearings), and at least one survey conducted by clinicians with more than 500 respondents reporting experiences of MK-Ultra style intentional manipulation.

For those interested in the Olson episode, I suggest H.P. Albarelli's exhaustive study, "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and The CIA's Cold War Experiments", published in 2009. He makes a convincing case for how Mr. Olson met his end on the sidewalk, as the CIA's first known murder of one of its own.

I also prefer Walter Bowart's "Operation Mind Control" over Marks' work. It's based on the same documentation, but Bowart provides a much more accurate description of the techniques developed during the 50's and 60's, and his conclusion, that this "work" continues is also correct. I can't point to a source for this, I don't believe it is in any published survivor account, but we do have young people coming forward as survivors today, people who were born in the 1980's, and 1990's. Together with the reports of other survivors, and my own experience, I can say mind control is still operational.

I was born in 1953 and place in the program as a small child in 1959 by a joint effort of the USN and Corp of Engineers but under paperwork issued by the Army Corp of Engineers. When the Stanford Project got out of hand Senator Harry Reid and a host of other people from the Churches that took over the project held a meeting in Hollywood. If you know anything about the MKULTRA program and the structure it included drug testing and the CIA involvement with the movie industry. Now don't take this wrong but if your family is long term movie industry workers their is a good chance your mother, or father used me for sex when I was a child. I know how the authorities continue the process of setting us up for jail terms to keep administering theses drugs so out memories won't return. I refused to take those drugs this last false arrest because I do remember and refuse to be put through the abuse of my profile to make our nation look good at my expense. I am done being the scape goat for what has been done to me. I have written congress and told them they will play hell and have hell to pay for their premeditated murderous choice to make someone and then murder them, which is reality and not movie magic. People have worth and are not to be used that way so I write to call them on their lie. Don't think you will get away with it and call it godly. There is nothing godly about murder by design.

Thank you for writing the article. SF Weekly is smart in doing so for there are actually millions of victims of the MK-Ultra and related experiments that are living today who do not know they were experimented on. The government ran 150 MK-Ultra related illegal experiments that were a violation of the Nuremburg Code of Laws. They inflicted torture and recruitment on children, young adults, manufactured LSD & other drugs and handed them out at elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, and colleges, went after Jewish minorities who served in the military and their children, robbed and stole articles from people, hired their own garbage collector service that would find ways to rob people including those who served in the military, especially minority groups; gave African American men syphillus so they could experiment on them to see how their treatments were, drove people to suicide using drugs, threats, terror tactics, and more. Today millions survive, yes, and families are affected. The CIA's clear aim was also to cause mental illnesses in people, especially those who they felt were not part of the posse: minority types, non pure anglo saxon Christians. There are people in mental institutions who were raped, defiled, fed overdoses of acid and other drugs, hounded, stalked by the CIA who are so afraid of reality, they may never become well and functioning people again. Worst of all, the CIA is known to cause paranoia, and uses mental threats, sometimes overreacting to situations and underreacting in others. It still goes on today. There are no real reports yet on the drug excstacy which seems to be so freely available to the youth today and for free?? The distribution of LSD was massive whereas, agents handed out sheets to entire schools, trying to recruit and entice people to do their bidding. The results were oftentime severe depression, paranoia, and unhealthy mind expansion that bordered on psychosis somewhat if around negative minded individuals during a "trip." The large list of stars who were bombarded by CIA covert action and the troves of suicides and questionable deaths of people who did not agree with the government's Vietnam war drafting and tactics; Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Reed, Janis Joplin, Stones, and umpteen more. It's important for the media to discuss these issues. They do not just go away!! They get forced under the rug by government officials who are cold, calculating, tactless, and imcompassionate or on power trips themselves. They get forced in the back of agent's memories, who are protected and given the right to get away with troves of crimes. "Power and control" is the main issue, not the protection of Americans! I feel there needs to be a great deal of ammends made to many, many people including, financial recompense, real bonafide apologies, every attempt to heal and help those who fell victims of the dirty evil experiments, and every attempt of the media to help bring those truths to the surface so that those victims and their families can make informed decisions. As for the children who were recruited, raped, sodomized, tortured, physically assaulted, forced to watch as little puppies were tortured as a training tactic, fed up with large amounts of LSD, etc... etc... a real attempt and action needs to be made today to bring them forth to recover any part of their lives robbed them as a result of diabolical government CIA underhanded actions. Those children who are grown up now, have a right to know, to realize the truth, to heal if they can, to regain and recover their own souls, and to be offerred financial recompense for those crimes illegally forced upon them. Wayne Ritchie is not one of the last surviving victims of MKULTRA; he is one of the many millions!

Is the CIA hiring?

This is the most thoroughly researched story on the San Francisco operation out there. Wow!

This article was poorly researched. Its information about MK-ULTRA is thoroughly inaccurate.

The writer says, "Now in his mid-eighties and living in San Jose, Ritchie may be among the last of the living victims of MK-ULTRA, a Central Intelligence Agency operation that covertly tested lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on unwitting Americans in San Francisco and New York City from 1953 to 1964."

First, Project MK-ULTRA did far more than test LSD on unwitting subjects. To quote from Wikipedia, "This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects....The published evidence indicates that Project MKULTRA involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate individual mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture." This information has been substantiated by testimony before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee, by thousands of pages of declassified CIA documents, by victims, and by scores of reputable psychologists and psychiatrists.

There are thousands of MK-ULTRA victims alive and not well today. Experiments were frequently run on children, whose minds were more suggestible and flexible - and less likely to be missed if psychological experiments resulted in permanent damage to the mind or abuse became deadly. Children as young as 4 and 6 were victims of MK-ULTRA in the 1960s. We are only in our fifties now.

To the bozo who wanted to be an LSD lab rat, there is a difference between occasional LSD use in a supportive environment and forced ingestion of massive doses of LSD by young children in a scary laboratory setting. And the LSD was far from the worst of the horrors of MK-ULTRA. In fact, if Ritchie's sole encounter with MK-ULTRA was a single dose of LSD, then even if he lost his career as a result, he got off easy. Very easy.

This is a continuing saga. An article also called "Sex, Drugs, and the CIA: The Shocking Search for an 'Ultimate Weapon' " by John Marks (The Saturday Review, February 3, 1979, pp. 12-16 available online) describes something of what went on at George White's "safe houses" in San Francisco and Marin, as well as his tricks of the trade.

"If we were so scared of a drug that we wouldn't try it out on ourselves," recalls a TSS source, "we sent it to San Francisco."

This is a continuing saga. John Marks in an article called "Sex, Drugs and the CIA" (Saturday Review, February 3, 1979, available online at unz.org) outlines the activities at George White's Marin "safe house", and describes other tricks of the trade.

Another article describes the horrific circumstances surrounding another victim of George Hunter White's experiments and how the lawsuit against the government was derailed.

(Sex Drugs & the CIA by Douglas Valentine, June 19, 2002, Counterpunch magazine, also available online)

"But internal memos and depositions taken from CIA officials in a lawsuit against the agency in the 1980s reveal that of the hundreds of experimental subjects used in the CIA's mind-control program, code-named MKULTRA, only 14 were ever notified and only one was compensated -- for $15,000.

"The 14 had all been given LSD surreptitiously by CIA agents in San Francisco in an attempt to test the drug in an ``operationally realistic'' setting. One of the victims, U.S. News discovered, was a San Francisco nightclub singer, Ruth Kelley, now deceased. In the early 1960s, according to a deposition from a CIA official who was assigned in the 1980s to track down MKULTRA victims, LSD was slipped into Kelley's drink just before her act at a club called The Black Sheep. The agents who had drugged her ``felt the LSD definitely took some effect during her act,'' testified Frank Laubinger, the official in charge of the notification program. One agent went to the bar the next day and reported that she was fine, though another recalled that she had to be hospitalized. "

(This is from US News article below, available online, which details some of the actions of the CIA's Victims Task Force, charged with finding the people experimented upon. According to another article, the CIA never located Ruth Kelley). The Cold War Experiments

Source: U.S News and World ReportJanuary 24, 1994.

The Cold War ExperimentsBy Stephen Budiansky, Erica E. Goode and Ted Gest

How many females gave birth to defected babies because of this!?????? HOW MANY!???

this is horrifying! im sure plenty of people would of been 'willing' test subjects. what fucking pigs! we PAY this men, CIA to protect Americans! NOT trick and dupe them!! to rupie someone now a days gives you jail time. I am floored to be quite frank. 60's rolled round, and LSD was everywhere. Music changed, hippies came, Haight-Ashbury opened a Clinic complete with 'come down' room, which was still present late 80's during opiate ourbreak.. LSD became mainstream after this experiement? I swear, Gov IS the monster that always brings drugs into society. grrrrrrr!

An old book review reveals a hidden truth, the type of misprint that could make copy editors blush or even an historian gnash their teeth or snort in disgust:

The Blacklisted Journalist publishes a book review by Joyce Metzger of "A Long Strange Trip", prepared by Dennis McNally. All of which is pretty colorful reading. Until I hit the klinker, when Metzger pulls a direct quote from the book:

"On May 15th, police and CHP entered the People’s Park as, Dennis wrote, “6000 Berkeleyites marched down Telegraph Hill. The next day, the police trapped 3000 and strafed them with tear gas from helicopters.”

McNally meant Telegraph Avenue, which is in Berkeley. There is a Telegraph Hill in Boston A small mistake that can mean utter unfamiliarity with the scene, certainly in terms of geography. There is also a Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, as Hooper's article points out.

(BlackListed Journalist is available online for reading. Section 6, Column 84, February 1, 2003) Pointing this out may merely add to the mounting conspiracy theory of some.

There is evidence the Grateful Dead were indirectly tools of the CIA for their style of music, which soothed the potential voters for the radical element. Instead of an angry, physical, war protesting radical you got a laid back, retreating, Learyite type of person leaving the system. Anyone who believes Owsley didn't have government connections is deluded. He practically launched the GD with his financial backing, buying them equipment that was leagues ahead of their peers. That whole San Francisco scene in the sixties was a gubment lab rat experiment. Just read anything by Jim Keith. Grateful Dead lovers HATE to hear this, but too bad.

Excerpts from Hunter's "journal" explains some things except why the CIA would want to give LSD to an attractive nineteen year old young woman who had her infant in her arms ... http://informationfarm.blogspo...

"Young, attractive Kelley caught White's eye, though she rejected his advances."-- you know, because he was giant piece of human $#!t.

So Mom along with my older brother & I as infants to toddler were probably tripping! hmmm

The people described in the Hooper article were what the overseers regarded as an "underclass", useful only for experimental purposes and left to wander off, perhaps suffer and die after the experiment was over. Let's try to keep that attitude of institutional arrogance in focus.

Musician-Songwriters Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead participated in experiments wiith LSD in a controlled enviroment at a university in the San Francisco Bay area in the very late 1950's or very early 1960's. The experiments were sponsored by, you guessed it, the United States government. And they were paid for being guinea pigs.Meanwhile future Grateful Dead member Bob Weir stated he was buying LSD at the back door of a bordello in San Francisco in the early 1960's. Manufactured by Sandoz Corp. So there you go, mates!

Nice write! (and kudos to U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho for investigating CIA malfeasance.) Is George Hunter White’s diary available for citation in whole or part? Would be fascinating.

And what about this? Is it possible? Hundreds end up in asylums, five people dead. http://www.tntmagazine.com/new...

I would have loved having White's job. Lucky SOB.

Adam Coe: Your reading of the term is too literal. A two-way mirror is a widely accepted term.

Via Wikipedia:

A one-way mirror, also known as a two-way mirror, one-way glass, or two-way glass is a mirror which is partially reflective and partially transparent. When one side of the mirror is brightly lit and the other is dark, it allows viewing from the darkened side but not vice versa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

Great story, but I have to bring up one nitpicky thing, for which I apologize...it just bugs the everlasting shit out of me...the phrase "two-way mirror." A two way mirror is just a piece of glass, because you can see through it in both directions. What you are referring to is one-way glass, where you can see through it on one side but not the other.

Again I apologize, that one phrase just irritates me to no end.

Wait, this article was just published two days ago??? MK-ULTRA immediately came to mind when the story broke today about Jason Russell's naked escapades. A Google search for 'Midnight Climax' brought me here.

Interesting...

i took a tab of windowpane LSD every day for six months back in 1970s L.A. I had to quit because I became so indecisive I couldn't choose what kind of sandwich I wanted and whether to shower or not to shower. I came to near nonfunction before I quit cold turkey and came back to reality. Powerful stuff that is fun for awhile, but eventually causes mass confusion.

I found the LSD MK ULTRA house in documentary POWER and Control : LSD in the 60's you can see it around 4 minutes into clip below 225 Chestnut Street is the exact address

LSD Documentary link to Part Onehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Cheers

Aron Ranen http://www.DVworkshops.com

I use to pop LSD back in the 80s, it was the best high I have ever experienced, even more so than smoking up a Dime Bag and makes it one helluva an Aphrodisiac when I started thinking about sex.

It's tempting to think the CIA does stuff to me, but God talks. It's standard spirituality like in the Bible. You have to learn to live with uncertainty... about everything. I have some pet birds. Once in a while I imagine how they view reality as they glance at my computer monitor. They're obviously clueless, but they do okay in reality, don't they?

And to think most of these demented "programs" were dreamed up by one Joseph Scheider (who later took the name Sidney Gottlieb), a crippled stammerer who overcompensated for his own congenital disabilities by learning to folk dance and write papers on Demosthenes, who was recruited from the lofty auspices of the Department of Agriculture because he'd studied "t-t-t-t-toxicology". Who by his own admission had administered LSD more than 200 times to himself in the early 50s. Nowadays, when others take a look at such a copious amount of LSD usage and resulting odd behaviors and mentation, people just dismiss Timothy Leary as "a new-age nincompoop" and describe John Lennon as "acid-battered". So what should we call the likes of Sidney Gottlieb and his cherished professional activities and colleagues (aside from mediocre albeit with a streak of evil). Yet, Gottlieb was in charge of the entire science division of CIA for decades, and the strongest criticism of him in-house was that he was "seriously cracked" and his programs by the Congress investigating him were described as "unethical" . Didn't anybody else in there notice or even care? Dick Helms ran true to form as the gutless wonder he was always known to be by launching his shredfest of incriminating documents, rather than taking it on the chin like a real m-a-n. These self-serving bureaucrats seriously fucked up people's lives and futures. The least we can do is spit on their memory.