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In 1979, ABC Close Up! released a documentary, ‘Mission – Mind Control’, which was an investigation into the US Army and the Central Intelligence Agency’s  30-year quest for the discovery or development of a mind-controlling drug.

Directed by Richard Roy and produced by Paul Altmeyer, the documentary discussed the brainwashing techniques used, the exploitation of unwitting victims and experiments with psychosurgery, parapsychology and brain implants.

It features interviews with key figures such as John Gittinger, John Marks, and Dr. Timothy Leary, along with a victim of drug testing, James Thornwell. It also explores CIA-funded research in brainwashing at McGill University in Montreal.

If the video above is removed from YouTube you can watch it on BitChute HERE or Rumble HERE.  The following is a brief summary of what is covered by ABC News’ investigation.  We have written it in present tense as if the documentary is recent but bear in mind the documentary was released 45 years ago.

Table of Contents

The Search for Mind Control

The US intelligence agencies have been searching for a way to perfect mind control for 30 years, with some of those involved agreeing to talk about it for the first time, revealing that they felt sorry for attempting such a thing and knew they were crossing the line.

The search for mind control involved various methods, including learning about human nature in brothels and studying the effects of a magical mushroom ceremony performed by an Indian Shaman.

One experiment involved implanting electrodes in the brain of a bull in a Spanish bullring, allowing a scientist to control its movements.

A man who worked on some of these programmes wrote about his experiences, describing it as “fun.”

The story of the search for mind control is told through the experiences of those involved, including a man who was a victim of one intelligence agency’s attempts to peel back his mind and reveal its deepest secrets.

The Origins of Mind Control Research

The search for mind control began with the Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”) during World War II, led by General Wild Bill Donovan, who encouraged his team to try new and unconventional methods.

Donovan appointed Stanley Lovell, a Boston industrialist, to break new ground in scientific and technical fields, and Lovell was tasked with stimulating the “bad boy” in every American scientist.

The search for mind control continued over the next two decades, involving people such as George White, an OSS Captain who had formerly worked with the Bureau of Narcotics.

White received his early OSS training at a British-run school in Canada, where Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was also trained.  White’s diaries, seen publicly for the first time, reveal the darker side of American intelligence work and his involvement in the search for mind control.

George White and the Truth Drug Committee

According to Mike Burke, a former OSS colleague of White and president of Madison Square Garden Centre, White was a mysterious and fascinating person with impressive technical knowledge of the underworld, having worked with the “swifter elements of society” and being familiar with the “gamier side of life” and “impressive in his technical knowledge of the underworld.”

White was a former associate of Charles Siragusa, a former narcotics officer, and had a reputation for being deadly and dedicated, as referred to by his boss at OSS, Stanley Lovell.

He worked with the truth drug committee at St Elizabeth’s Hospital, experimenting with mescaline, scopolamine and marijuana on unwitting victims, but they soon learned that there was no easy panacea or truth drug.

The goal of the committee, as stated in a 1952 CIA memo, was to control a person to the point where they would do their bidding against their will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation.

LSD and the CIA

The discovery of lysergic acid diethylamide (“LSD”) by Dr Albert Hoffman at Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland led intelligence agencies to believe they had found the panacea, with the CIA showing intense interest in the substance.

John Gittinger, a recently retired chief psychologist for the CIA, noted that LSD was a powerful drug that could potentially disable a whole city by putting a small amount in the water supply.

The CIA was concerned that the Russians would get hold of LSD, but there was no direct proof of Soviet involvement, although intelligence information suggested that Sandoz Laboratories was about to put 100 million doses of LSD on the open market.  However, it was later revealed that this information was incorrect, and the United States had prepared to buy the entire supply based on a mistake made by a military attaché in Switzerland who got milligrammes and kilogrammes mixed up.

John Marks, a consultant for the report and author of ‘The Search for the Manchurian Candidate’, has filed numerous Freedom of Information suits against the CIA and uncovered new material on the agency’s work with mind control.

The CIA received intelligence that there were 100 million doses of a certain substance on the market, but it was later found that there were only a few hundred doses, a mistake of a million times.

In a 2023 article we noted that Aldous Huxley, author of ‘Brave New World’, was involved in a CIA programme that used LSD to brainwash people. We wrote:

“Huxley’s move from the UK to America was not happenstance.  According to Marilyn Ferguson in her book ‘The Aquarian Conspiracy’, in the 1930s Huxley was sent to the US by the British government ‘as the case officer for an operation to prepare the United States for the mass dissemination of drugs … In effect, Huxley and [others] laid the foundations during the late 1930s and the 1940s for the later LSD culture’. Over the years Huxley was involved in dubious activities including the use of LSD to ‘brainwash influential people’ and being in contact with the president of Sandoz, who was fulfilling a CIA contract for MK-Ultra, consisting of large quantities of LSD.”—George Bernard Shaw, the Fabian Society and a ‘Brave New World’, The Exposé, 19 June 2023

Magic Mushrooms and the CIA

Dr. Sydney Gottlieb, a chemist, oversaw the CIA’s research into drugs and behaviour programmes but declined an interview request.

The CIA was interested in the magic mushrooms because they believed a drug derived from them could remain an agency secret and be used to cause changes in behaviour and mental attitude.

The CIA searched for “magic mushrooms” in remote areas of southern Mexico, using a part-time chemist and an amateur mycologist to try to turn them into a drug.  Amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson discovered and recorded the ancient mystical rites of the mushrooms from a local Shaman or magical Priestess, Maria Sabina.  Wasson and his colleagues developed the drug psilocybin from the magic mushrooms.

Unethical Experimentation on Unwitting Subjects

The CIA considered using the substances on unwitting people, including hostile agents and American citizens.

A decision was made at the highest levels of the CIA to test the substances on unwitting Americans, with the goal of making the testing “operationally realistic.”  A former CIA official described the decision to test on unwitting victims, stating that they knew they were crossing a line and chose vulnerable people on the fringes of society.

The CIA recruited underworld figures, including prostitutes, drug addicts and small-time criminals for their experiments, as they were powerless to seek revenge if they discovered the truth.

George White, a high-ranking narcotics official, was chosen by the CIA for his expertise in the underworld and his willingness to bend the law.  White set up “safe houses” in New York and San Francisco, where the CIA conducted experiments on drug testing, sexual behaviour, and manipulation.  The safe houses were used to study how prostitutes could be used to extract information from men and the CIA learned a lot about human nature in the process.

LSD, the Counterculture and the CIA

The CIA’s experiments also involved testing LSD on unsuspecting victims and the agency spent millions of dollars on LSD research at universities across the country.

The CIA’s involvement in LSD research contributed to the spread of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and Dr. Timothy Leary, a prominent figure in the movement, was funded and supported by the CIA.

The CIA’s support for LSD research led to hundreds of young psychiatrists experimenting with the drug, which ultimately contributed to its widespread use.

However, some researchers argue that the CIA’s involvement in LSD research was not the primary cause of the counterculture movement, but rather a contributing factor.

The CIA’s role in the counterculture movement of the 1960s is still a matter of debate, but it is clear that their experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens had a significant impact on the era.

The Dark Side of Espionage and the Case of Frank Olsen

ABC’s report also covers the darker side of espionage and the use of exotic drugs, highlighting the risks and consequences, including deaths and long-lasting harm to people.

‘Mission – Mind Control’ highlights the case of Frank Olsen, a chemist who was slipped LSD unknowingly by CIA officials in 1953, leading to his severe depression and eventual death by jumping from a hotel window.  Olsen’s widow, Alice, was visited by the men involved in the incident shortly after his death but it would take her 23 years to discover the truth about her husband’s death, which she describes as a 22-year-long cover-up.

The CIA’s testing of LSD and other drugs was slowed down momentarily by Olsen’s suicide but the agency was not the only government agency interested in the possibilities of these drugs for mind control.

Army Chemical Corps Experiments and the Death of Harold Blauer

The Army Chemical Corps – a branch of the US Army responsible for defending against and using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (“CBRN”) weapons – also tested drugs on unwitting victims, resulting in the death of Harold Blauer, a tennis pro who was given five injections of a mescaline derivative in 1953.

Blauer’s death was followed by a 22-year cover-up, after which the Army admitted the real details of his death and nearly 5,000 previously classified documents were released, providing insight into the Army’s activities at the time.

The documents included a deposition from Dr. James Cattell, who administered the mescaline derivative to Blauer, stating that the purpose of the drug testing was to produce symptoms similar to those seen in schizophrenia.

Cattell also revealed that he did not know what drug he had given Blauer due to the secrecy of the Army experiments, and that he did not inform Blauer of the possibilities of what might happen during the experiment.

Blauer’s daughter, Elizabeth, reacted to the news by stating that it was “unbelievable” and “so far from what you’d expect from a human being, never mind a doctor.”  A suit filed by Elizabeth Barrett against the Army Chemical Corps is currently pending in federal court (remember that this was in 1979).

Other Army Experiments and the Search for Incapacitating Agents

Other Army experiments involved mental patients around the country, including work done at the Tulane Medical Centre in New Orleans, which involved several drugs, hallucinogens and electrodes implanted in the brain.

The chief researcher, Dr. Russell Monroe, wrote progress reports on the experiments, including one on a woman who had electrodes implanted in her brain and was given LSD and other drugs, resulting in paranoid ideas and bizarre sensations.

Dr. Monroe stated that the therapeutic effect of the experiment would be indirect and that the patient was aware that she would be given some medication but not specifically LSD.

The US Army Chemical Corps was searching for an incapacitating agent that would temporarily disable people without causing permanent harm, which seemed like a more humane approach to warfare.

In 1961, James Thornwell, an Army private stationed in Oron, France, was given LSD by Army intelligence as part of an interrogation to extract classified information, with the goal of “peeling back” his brain to reveal any secrets.

Thornwell’s two-and-a-half-month interrogation included administration of sodium pentothal, hypnosis, isolation and sleep deprivation; but Army intelligence was not making progress, leading to the decision to use LSD.

Thornwell reported experiencing a “bad trip” with excruciating pain, feeling like he was being stuck with a million pins and still suffers from serious problems, including nightmares, social isolation and an inability to hold a job (recall that ABC’s documentary was released in 1979).

An Army psychiatric evaluation of Thornwell before the LSD interrogation described him as “fairly cooperative, oriented, alert and gave no evidence of psychosis or depression.”

The Army considered the LSD interrogation a success, with documents referring to the “exploitability of interrogation subjects” and the use of LSD as an “economical, speedy and productive aid to interrogation.”

Thornwell filed a lawsuit against the government in federal court, citing the long-term effects of the LSD interrogation, including his inability to concentrate, hold a job or maintain relationships.

CIA-Funded Experiments at the Allen Memorial Institute

The Allen Memorial Institute of Psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal conducted CIA-funded experiments under the direction of Dr. Ewen Cameron, which involved severe experiments that were unprecedented in psychiatry. 

Dr. Cameron’s work consisted of three areas: sleep therapy, psychic driving and depatterning, with the goal of making direct control changes in personality.  Psychic driving involved intensive electric treatment and the use of tape-recorded messages and drugs to make patients forgetful and implant new ideas.

Val, the wife of a Canadian Parliament member, was a patient of Dr. Cameron’s and underwent LSD therapy and psychic driving treatment, which she describes as a frightening and impersonal experience.

Dr. Cameron’s depatterning technique involved breaking up existing patterns of behaviour using intensive electroshock therapy and prolonged periods of sleep, which was carried out in the “sleep rooms.”  The experiments were so severe that patients in the sleep rooms were left disoriented and crying like babies.

Val became despondent and angry during her treatment and even considered throwing herself in front of cars but ultimately couldn’t go through with it.

Dr. Maurice Dongier, the head of the Allen Memorial Institute in 1979, describes Dr. Cameron’s work as a type of therapy that aimed to make patients forgetful and implant new ideas.

Patients at the Allan Memorial Institute were subjected to a combined sleep and electroshock treatment, known as “de-patterning,” developed by Dr. Ewen Cameron, which involved keeping patients asleep for up to 65 days.

A follow-up study ordered by Dr. Robert Cleghorn, Cameron’s successor, found that the de-patterning method was no more beneficial than more conservative methods, but resulted in 60% of patients experiencing amnesia for periods of 6 months to 10 years.

The experimentation was financed by the CIA, which has been met with anger and sadness from those who underwent the treatment.  If given the opportunity, one patient said they would tell the CIA that their actions were unacceptable and that they should not be conducted on people who are incapable of knowing what’s happening or defending themselves.

Dr. Cameron died in 1967 while mountain climbing and a colleague described him as someone who believed “the ends justify the means” and was well-suited for the CIA’s goals.

Brainwashing and the Cold War

The Cold War, particularly the trial of Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty and the Korean War, sparked interest in brainwashing in intelligence circles.  The CIA secretly commissioned a study of communist brainwashing methods at the Cornell University Medical Centre, led by Dr. Lawrence Hinkle.

The Russian method of controlling and breaking a person involves isolating them from everyone else, with one person assigned to get them to confess to being a criminal.  The Chinese method involves getting the person to write and rewrite their life story, and talk about their past, without the need for physical force.

The CIA was interested in developing mind control methods to precondition and control Chinese living in the US to be sent back to their homeland as CIA agents.  The project’s goal was to induce agents to perform complex, purposeful acts that may be out of keeping with their previous intentions and interests.

Dr. Hinkle clarifies that the project’s intention was not to control people’s minds or induce them to perform acts contrary to their interests but rather to understand the effects of brainwashing.

The Manchurian Candidate and Hypnosis

The CIA attempted to develop agents with as much control as possible, who would perform tasks contrary to their own good, and have no memory of their actions, as seen in the film ‘The Manchurian Candidate’.

Dr. Milton Klein –  a psychologist, clinical and experimental hypnotist and unpaid consultant to the CIA – stated that a person can be influenced, coerced or persuaded under hypnosis to perform an anti-social or destructive act, but with certain qualifications.

He said that the qualifications for successful hypnosis include the subject selected, the amount of time, the procedures used and the motivations of the people designing and administering the procedure.

Gittinger claimed that hypnosis has no use in the intelligence field, as it has never been done in an operationally feasible way.  Despite this, most government agencies concerned with intelligence operations have been looking to hypnosis as a tool for various purposes, including carrying out intelligence operations without relying on emotional reactions.

Fidel Castro was once considered a possible target for a “Manchurian Candidate” style operation but it was ultimately deemed not feasible due to the risk of dependency and lack of control.

Gittinger’s Personality Assessment System

The CIA’s search for mind control continued and they made a significant breakthrough with a Personality Assessment System (“PAS”) designed by John Gittinger, which can predict human behaviour to some extent. 

Gittinger’s system was used to draw personality portraits of world leaders, including the Shah of Iran, who was assessed as a brilliant but dangerous megalomaniac.  The system also had other applications, including helping other governments pick their police and intelligence agencies.

In 1966, Gittinger and an assistant travelled to Uruguay to administer personality tests to select members of the Uruguayan intelligence service as part of an effort to find vulnerabilities in potential agents.

A psychologist who worked for the CIA in 1961 travelled to South Korea to set up the Korean CIA and administer personality tests to candidates to choose the best men for their secret police.

The PAS, developed by Gittinger, was used to find a person’s soft spot, which is considered a negative aspect, but the system was deemed successful and conventional compared to other experiments.

Remote Control of Animals and Humans

Neurophysicist Dr. Jose Delgado conducted an experiment financed by the Office of Naval Research, where he implanted electrodes in a bull’s brain and was able to control the animal remotely.

Recently released CIA documents (in 1979) refer to the feasibility of remote control of animals and the application of these techniques to humans. 

Other areas of research examined through the 1960s and 1970s include brain surgery, psychosurgery and the creation of amnesia.

The End of Mind Control Research?

Former CIA officials have indicated that this kind of work ended in 1963 but the truth about those who took part in these programmes is still unclear.

In 1977, the Senate subcommittee heard testimony from many of those who took part in these programmes but the testimony was not revealing as they had agreed to keep the inquiry within certain bounds.

Former narcotics officer Charles Siragusa was asked to limit his testimony by his CIA superior, and former CIA chemist Robert Lashbrook testified that he had no firsthand knowledge of the agency’s safe houses, despite having supervised one.

Dr. Sydney Gottle, who oversaw many of the CIA’s behavioural programmes, destroyed the records of this work and testified before the Senate subcommittee from an anti-room, citing health and cardiac problems.

George White, who helped the agency in many of its programmes, retired to Stinson Beach, California.  Shortly before his death, he wrote to his boss, Dr. Gottle, saying that his career was “fun, fun, fun” and that he was able to “lie, kill and cheat” with the sanction and blessing of the highest authorities.

The Limits of Mind Control and the Future of Research

In 1979, the available evidence suggests that achieving mind control is doubtful, as the human will has prevailed up to this point, but work in this field is continuing, with the extent of involvement from the Russians and other dictatorships unknown.

The CIA is reluctant to give out information about its work in this field, raising questions about the place of mind control within a democracy.

A scientist who worked on these programmes described themselves and their colleagues as capable, conscientious and dedicated, with their work speaking for itself.

Related: The CIA’s Appalling Human Experiments With Mind Control (archived on the Wayback Machine), The History Channel, 6 July 2021