Free US shipping over $150

A free sticker on orders $35+

New: The Illuminati Comic

Conspiracy file · April 3, 1953

Project MK-ULTRA

The CIA's secret research into drugs, hypnosis and other ways to control behavior, approved in April 1953 and run into the 1960s. It dosed unwitting people with LSD, funded work at dozens of universities and hospitals, and was exposed in the 1970s after most of its records had been destroyed.

Also known as MKULTRA · MK-Ultra · The CIA mind control program

On the recordTimelineFrom the comicsIn Paranoid American comicsSources & further reading

The story

On April 3, 1953, Richard Helms proposed a program of research into chemical and biological ways of influencing behavior, and Director Allen Dulles approved it on April 13. Run by the chemist Sidney Gottlieb, MK-ULTRA grew to 149 subprojects at more than 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, 12 hospitals and 3 prisons, many of which never knew where the money came from.

Some of it was ordinary lab work. Some was not. Under Operation Midnight Climax, men were lured to CIA safehouses in San Francisco and New York, given LSD without their knowledge and watched through one-way mirrors. Army scientist Frank Olson died in 1953 after being secretly dosed. In Montreal, psychiatrist Ewen Cameron's "psychic driving" experiments, partly CIA-funded, left patients with lasting damage.

In 1973 CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the MK-ULTRA files destroyed. The program surfaced through the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee in 1975, and in 1977 a Freedom of Information request by John Marks turned up some 20,000 documents that had been missed. The Senate held hearings that August. What was destroyed is the gap every theory since has tried to fill.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Project MK-ULTRA

On the record

  1. Richard Helms proposed the program on April 3, 1953; Allen Dulles approved it on April 13.
  2. MK-ULTRA comprised 149 subprojects at more than 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, 15 research foundations or drug companies, 12 hospitals or clinics and 3 prisons.
  3. Frank Olson, a civilian scientist at Fort Detrick, fell to his death from a New York hotel window on November 28, 1953, nine days after CIA officers secretly gave him LSD. His family received $750,000 in 1976.
  4. Under Operation Midnight Climax, narcotics agent George Hunter White ran CIA safehouses where unwitting men were given LSD.
  5. In 1973 Helms ordered the MK-ULTRA records destroyed.
  6. In 1977 John Marks' FOIA request uncovered about 20,000 surviving documents, and the Senate held a hearing on August 3, 1977.
  7. In 1988 the U.S. paid $750,000 to settle claims by nine former patients of Ewen Cameron's CIA-funded experiments in Montreal.

The theory

  • MK-ULTRA worked, and produced programmed assassins and couriers (a theme since The Manchurian Candidate, 1959, and the core of Project Monarch lore).
  • It never really ended: its work moved to MKSEARCH in 1964 and, some say, into programs still classified.
  • The CIA shaped the 1960s counterculture with LSD; Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were paid volunteers in drug studies at the Menlo Park VA hospital, which some writers tie to MK-ULTRA.
  • Ted Kaczynski was shaped by Henry Murray's Harvard stress experiments of 1959-62, which theorists link to MK-ULTRA; Murray's CIA ties are disputed.
  • The 1951 mass poisoning at Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, was a U.S. LSD test (H. P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake, 2009); the usual explanations are ergot or mercury poisoning.

Timeline

  1. 1950Project BLUEBIRD is approved
  2. 1951BLUEBIRD becomes ARTICHOKE
  3. 1953MK-ULTRA is proposed (April 3) and approved (April 13); Frank Olson dies (November 28)
  4. 1955Operation Midnight Climax's San Francisco safehouse opens
  5. 1957Ewen Cameron's CIA-funded work in Montreal begins
  6. 1964MK-ULTRA's remaining work moves to MKSEARCH
  7. 1973Helms orders the files destroyed
  8. 1975The Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee investigate the CIA
  9. 1977Surviving records turn up; Senate hearing (August 3)
  10. 1988Cameron's former patients settle with the U.S. for $750,000

From the comics

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

From MK-ULTRA · Pages 4-5

Midnight Climax

MK-ULTRA's first years in four panels: the program's birth, a French town some believe was a test site, and the safehouses where unwitting men were dosed and watched. Most of it is in the CIA's own files; the Pont-Saint-Esprit link is a theory.

Midnight Climax, 1 of 4 Midnight Climax, 2 of 4
Midnight Climax, 3 of 4 Midnight Climax, 4 of 4
  1. April 3, 1953 is the date of Richard Helms' proposal; Allen Dulles approved MK-ULTRA ten days later. BLUEBIRD had already become ARTICHOKE in 1951. The "world supply" story comes from John Marks: in 1953 the CIA set out to buy 10 kilograms of LSD from Sandoz, which turned out to have made only a tiny fraction of that.
  2. Pont-Saint-Esprit, August 1951: about 250 people fell ill and several died. The usual explanations are ergot or mercury poisoning; journalist H. P. Albarelli Jr. argued in 2009 that it was a U.S. LSD test, and the name Project SPAN comes from accounts of that theory.
  3. Subproject 3 is real. George Hunter White, a narcotics agent working for the CIA, ran safehouses in New York and, from 1955, in San Francisco; Midnight Climax is the name usually given to the San Francisco operation.

Get the evidence

Comics, stickers & more

More conspiracy files