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Conspiracy file · 1947

Project CHATTER

The U.S. Navy's search for a truth drug, begun in the fall of 1947 and wound up in 1953. It tested mescaline, scopolamine and other drugs for interrogation: the first of the Cold War programs that led to MK-ULTRA.

Also known as CHATTER · The Navy's truth-drug program

On the recordTimelineFrom the comicsIn Paranoid American comicsSources & further reading

The story

According to the Senate's Church Committee, Project CHATTER began in the fall of 1947, after reports of "amazing results" the Soviets were getting with truth drugs. It looked for drugs that would make people talk, for use in interrogations and in recruiting agents, and its research included experiments on animals and human subjects.

The work ran through the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, under Dr. Charles Savage. The drugs studied included mescaline, scopolamine and anabasine, a plant alkaloid; some accounts say LSD was tried too. The project grew during the Korean War and ended in 1953, the year the CIA launched MK-ULTRA.

Much less is known about CHATTER than about the CIA programs: what survives is a few paragraphs in the Church Committee report and a small release of Navy documents. Its pedigree is part of the theory. The Navy knew about the mescaline experiments the SS had run on prisoners at Dachau, and some writers draw a straight line from those experiments to CHATTER.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Project CHATTER

On the record

  1. The Church Committee reported that Project CHATTER was a Navy program that began in the fall of 1947.
  2. Its purpose was to identify and test truth drugs for interrogation and agent recruitment, prompted by reports of Soviet "amazing results".
  3. The research included laboratory experiments on animals and human subjects with anabasine, scopolamine and mescaline.
  4. The project expanded during the Korean War and ended in 1953.
  5. In 1945 the U.S. Naval Technical Mission in Europe documented mescaline experiments the SS had run on prisoners at Dachau.
  6. The CIA's BLUEBIRD (1950) and ARTICHOKE (1951) programs ran alongside it; MK-ULTRA followed in April 1953.

The theory

  • CHATTER built directly on the Dachau mescaline experiments, with Nazi data and possibly Nazi doctors (argued by H. P. Albarelli Jr. and by Annie Jacobsen, among others).
  • It was the Navy's first step toward a programmed agent, the "Manchurian Candidate" later sought under BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE.
  • Most of its records were destroyed or never released, so its real scale is unknown.

Timeline

  1. 1945The U.S. Naval Technical Mission reports on mescaline experiments at Dachau
  2. 1947Project CHATTER begins (fall)
  3. 1950The CIA approves Project BLUEBIRD; the Korean War begins
  4. 1951BLUEBIRD becomes ARTICHOKE
  5. 1953CHATTER ends; the CIA approves MK-ULTRA (April 13)
  6. 1976The Church Committee's final report describes CHATTER
  7. 1977Senate hearing on MK-ULTRA (August 3)

From the comics

Panels straight from the page. Click one to read it full size.

From MK-ULTRA · Pages 2-3

The Perfect Interrogation Drug

The pamphlet's quick tour of the programs before MK-ULTRA: the Navy's CHATTER in 1947, then the CIA's BLUEBIRD in 1950. Both were real, and both were about getting people to talk.

The Perfect Interrogation Drug, 1 of 3
The Perfect Interrogation Drug, 2 of 3 The Perfect Interrogation Drug, 3 of 3
  1. Unwitting subjects: the 1977 Senate hearing confirmed that MK-ULTRA tested drugs on people who did not know they were being tested.
  2. The drugs the Church Committee names for CHATTER are mescaline, scopolamine and anabasine. Sodium pentothal was the era's classic "truth serum", and the wartime OSS had already tested a marijuana extract as a truth drug.
  3. BLUEBIRD was proposed on April 5, 1950, and approved on April 20. "Brainwashing" was a new word then: journalist Edward Hunter popularized it that same year.

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