Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (23 page)

One of the most bizarre and disturbing conspiracies of all time was Project MKULTRA. This was the secret name for a series of CIA experiments that took place from the 1950s to the 1970s, which were designed to explore the possibilities of mind control through the use of drugs such as LSD and mescaline. In these experiments, subjects were given mind-altering drugs, often without their prior knowledge, and their subsequent behaviour was then studied.

In several cases the experiments resulted in the death of one or another of the participants and there were many instances of severe, permanently damaging mental illness. However, the CIA continued to conduct the trials until the project was finally exposed. Ultimately, very little useful information about mind control resulted from MKULTRA and it seems that sadism, rather than serious scientific enquiry, was the driving force behind some of the experiments.

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RUTH DRUGS
MKULTRA was set up by Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, in 1953, in order to look into the use of mind control techniques. The project was led by Dr Sidney Gottleib, and early research was directed towards trying to find a "truth drug" for use in the interrogation of Russian spies. The project was wide reaching, with over a hundred research programmes, many of which were secret, and experiments were conducted on army and other personnel without their knowledge.

In the initial phase of the project, the effect of radiation on the human mind was the main focus of research but, as time went on, interest began to centre on the effect of psychotropic drugs, particularly LSD. As the programmes proliferated, subjects began to be recruited from outside the army and the CIA. Patients with mental illnesses (many of them with minor disorders such as mild depression and anxiety), prostitutes and other types of individual were often used as guinea pigs. An undeniable element of torture crept into the experiments, as Gottleib began to tie his victims up in straitjackets after administering the drugs. They were often locked in rooms where they could see or hear nothing or tape loops were played to them in an attempt to drive them mad. Gottleib also ordered his subjects to be given enormous amounts of LSD – in one experiment, volunteers were given the drug for a period of over two months, causing many of them to suffer permanent mental damage.

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PERATION
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IDNIGHT
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As time went on, the MKULTRA research programmes became ever more bizarre and unpleasant, but they yielded very little in the way of scientific results. One of the most infamous of the experiments was Operation Midnight Climax, in which Dr George Hunter White recruited prostitutes from San Francisco. The prostitutes were asked to administer LSD to their clients without the clients’ knowledge. The LSD was put into the victims’ drinks and CIA operatives monitored their behaviour through two-way mirrors. No scientific benefits at all accrued from this experiment – the operatives were not trained scientists – and one can only assume that it was set up as a means of satisfying the prurient interests of those who devised it. However, it took more than a decade for this programme to end.

It was later revealed that Dr Gottleib's behaviour as head of MKULTRA was also questionable. He was known to take large amounts of LSD himself and he seemed obsessed with the drug, even though it began to emerge that it was of very little use as a mind control device. Subjects under the influence of the drug behaved erratically and, if anything, became less susceptible to interrogation than they had been without the drug.

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ANGEROUS TREATMENTS
Undeterred by the fact that LSD seemed to be useless as a mind-controlling substance, the MKULTRA team went on to perform more and more dangerous experiments on their hapless victims. In some cases, they simultaneously drip-fed a mixture of amphetamines and barbiturates into their subjects, which resulted in extreme mental confusion and sometimes even death. In addition to the use of LSD, amphetamines, and barbiturates the MKULTRA team experimented with other drugs such as heroin, mescaline, marijuana and alcohol.

Perhaps the worst abuses of all took place in Canada, under the aegis of Dr Ewan Cameron. Dr Cameron had put forward a theory of "psychic driving" in which he claimed that the mind could be erased and then corrected through drugs and other therapies. He conducted experiments in Montreal over a period of almost a decade, using a combination of electroconvulsive therapy and drugs, both administered at well above the normal levels. He regularly induced comas in his subjects, sometimes for months on end, while playing them tape loops, supposedly to correct their thinking. Not surprisingly, by the end of his treatment, many of his patients were mentally scarred for life.

B
LOWING THE WHISTLE
It was not until 1974 that the project came under press scrutiny, when an article in The New York Times reported on the CIA's history of experimentation on human beings for the purposes of "mind control" research. Several committees were set up to look into what had happened, but they found that much of the evidence had gone missing. Many of MKULTRA's records had been destroyed in order to prevent the truth from ever coming out. Even so, there was enough information to show that the MKULTRA project had been very extensive. Over thirty universities and other institutions had been involved and many of the subjects had been completely unaware that they were being given drugs. Not only this, but the experiments were mostly completely pointless from a scientific point of view.

It was also revealed that an army scientist, Frank Olsen, had been given LSD without his knowledge as part of an experiment and had later thrown himself out of a window and died. His family later alleged that he was murdered because he knew too much about the CIA's nefarious activities. There were also reports that a professional tennis player, Harold Blauer, had died as a result of being given high doses of mescaline without his consent.

Following these revelations, the United States army was also investigated and a number of shocking cases came to light in which subjects had been given drugs without their consent or knowledge, as a part of so-called experiments. Legislation was enacted to prevent such abuses occurring again and compensation was paid to some of the victims. Nevertheless, the MKULTRA project remains one of the most sinister, and bizarre, state conspiracies ever to have taken place in America, or perhaps anywhere else.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 has generated more conspiracy theories than almost any other crime in history. This is partly because the crime was such a shocking, dramatic event. As we all know, the President was fatally shot in full view of the public while riding along in an open-topped motorcade, with his wife beside him. But it is also because the hastily assembled Warren Commission, set up just one week after the assassination for the purpose of enquiring into what happened, failed to account for the many perplexing aspects of the crime. The Commission found that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, had fired three shots at the President. The first of these missed the motorcade; the second wounded both Kennedy and the Governor of Texas, John B. Connally, who was also riding in the limousine; and the third and final shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him.

The related conspiracy theories became known as "The Lone Gunman Theory" and "The Single Bullet Theory" (often jokingly referred to as the "Magic Bullet Theory" because it seemed so unlikely that one bullet could penetrate two people). In time, both theories came to be regarded as highly implausible – not only by the experts but by the majority of the American public, who were polled on numerous occasions in order to obtain their opinions on the matter.

To compound the confusions, on 24 November 1963 Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, shot Oswald dead while he was in police captivity. Once again, the killing took place in full view of the public. The event prompted a new wave of speculation. How was it that Ruby had found it so easy to flout the tight security surrounding Oswald? Had Oswald been swiftly executed in order to prevent incriminating evidence being brought against establishment figures at the trial? And what about Ruby's links to the world of organized crime? Was the Mafia involved in some way with Kennedy's death? Ruby swore that he had been acting on his own, in revenge for the killing, but many disbelieved him. By the time he died of a stroke on 3 January 1967, his motives were still thought by some to be questionable.

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RASSY
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NOLL
Rumours about the Kennedy assassination persisted throughout the years that followed until, in 1976, the evidence was re-examined by a House Select Committee that was convened for that purpose. This time, the committee found that there were probably two gunmen, not one, and that four bullets were fired: three by Oswald, and one from an unknown gunman hiding in a nearby area that was known as the Grassy Knoll. Many witness reports were collected, some of them conflicting, and evidence was also acquired from people who had photographed, filmed, or recorded the event. However, the report was not conclusive. It merely suggested that a conspiracy of some kind seemed likely, given the probability that two gunmen were responsible (a theory based on acoustic recordings of the gunshots fired).