Anti Conspiracy Ostriches - how do you ignore MKULTRA?

[Must_B_Free]

How do you hide from this one? Do you suppose the congressional documents were faked by a "conspiracy theorist"?

Do you deny it? Do you shrug it off? Or do you accept it as fact?

If you know what it is, what do you suppose it was for?

Do you think it bears any connection to Sirhan, Hinkley, Chapman, or John Muhammad?

http://www.parascope.com/ds/mkultra0.htm

[BBradley]

1. I don't understand why this is a conspiracy...

It doesn't appear as if they've succeeded in any of their experiments.

[Name removed]

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[ant]

3. wow

Are you saying the CIA has figured out the secrets of mind control? I guess it's only a matter of time before they get all us DUers...

Or maybe they already have...

[Must_B_Free]

5. This is the "ridicule" method of detraction

combined with a classic "straw man" - create a ridiculous characterization that the author never made and present it as a logical continuance.

It's interesting, the level of dedication that is invested in detracting from cognitively dissonant facts - with all the fervor of a witch hunt.

[hang a left]

6. Yes sir, lots of interesting people around DU this week.

[ant]

7. oh, c'mon

Is anyone expected to respond seriously to the hostility of that post?

The original post attempted to link CIA efforts at mind control to some basic conspiracy theories. The first response raised a perfectly legitimate question:

If the CIA never mastered mind control, how is the fact that they researched the matter relevant?

This question was not answered. Instead, the person who asked it was insulted.

So then...what was that about the "ridicule" method of detraction?

If the question asked is not legitimate, why not? What connection are people supposed to draw between CIA research into mind control and the conspiracy theories listed in the original post? How is that connection affected by the fact that the research was never successful?

I eagerly await a response that involve no insults.

[Must_B_Free]

8. What do we know about the success of the research?

Do we know whether it was successful or not?

All we know is that they researched mind control over at least a couple of decades and then claims to have "stopped" (maybe like Total Information Awareness "stopped" and became Terrorist Information Awareness".

So what is the relevancy of the first reponse if it relies on an assumption whose validity we know little about?

[ant]

10. well...

...if we can't know whether or not the research was successful it seems no one can know anything either way. In that case, saying people are "ostriches" or "ignorant" doesn't seem very fair, does it? Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe I'm not - you don't KNOW either way, do you?

In the absence of the necessary information, you choose to assume one thing and I choose to assume another. So let's talk about why we each assume what we do.

In my mind, it makes sense that they didn't accomplish much with the research because no one else has. The CIA was not alone in researching LSD, and anything they might've learned in their research is something independent researchers and academics would've come across on their own by now.

What's more, I suspect if the US had this sort of capability we'd use it much more often. Assasinating Saddam would've been easier, getting the leaders of foreign countries to back our war would've been easier....basically I just don't see any evidence right now that the CIA has this sort of power.

So then - why do you assume they do?

[ant]

11. rather funny side note

I was doing some googling and came across this:

http://www.mindmined.com/public_library/nonfiction/jessica_locke_del_greco_LSD_research.html

This part struck me:
At first the LSD tests within the CIA were executed systematically. A typical experiment involved two agents secluding themselves in a room, ingesting the drug, and taking notes on their experiences. This analytical approach did not last long, however. CIA agents agreed that it was necessary for all personnel to undergo impromptu trips in order to properly prepare for the event of an enemy-administered dose of LSD. They began to randomly spike each others drinks with lysergic acid. No one in the agency was excluded from these impromptu trips, and their experiences ranged from mystical to disastrous. One CIA agent stated after his surprise ingestion, "I didn't want to leave it. I felt I would be going back to a place where I wouldn't be able to hold on to this kind of beauty." (Lee & Shalin, 30) Other, less fortunate agents reacted to LSD with extreme paranoid episodes.

I'm not sure how accurate this is, but if it's true...damn! I sure would've like to have worked at the CIA in those days. :evilgrin:

And note, too, that part of the motivation for this research was a concern that "the enemy" was doing it too. I know the CIA has done some very bad things, and I'm not defending that, but I think it's a little unfair to always assume their motives are sinister. The road to hell is paved with GOOD intentions, after all...

[julka]

13. just being good Germans

right?

[ant]

20. have you ever done acid?

Believe me...it tends to free the mind, not restrict it. The Nazis would've hated it.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[julka]

28. uhhhh what final gasp?

even we oldsters have to eat occasionally, no matter how much our metab slows down in dotage

BTW, how do you have ANY idea what my age is, or whether I've ever done any acid?

I'm sure that, in your youth and experience, you bring many years of wisdom to the table.

I bow to your superior knowledge and worldliness.

pass the saring-gha

[Name removed]

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[ant]

47. uh....

BTW, how do you have ANY idea what my age is, or whether I've ever done any acid?

Didn't YOU say you had done acid several times, probably before I was born?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

44. LSD "frees the mind"?

Doesn't restrict it? Please. Looks like some of our homegrown fascists liked it just fine. Good timing for all the hippies to start dropping out too - LSD was the end of the new left, and lots of them were junkies by the end of the 1970s. The CIA sure figured out how to disable activists, who were too busy "freeing their mind" to put up much effective opposition.

Mind control? Nope, just mind diversion, works just as well.

[ant]

45. just my experience

I did a lot of acid and shrooms in high school/college, and I probably got high about once a day every day from about 1992 to 1997.

And yet, somehow I managed to be politically active/aware while getting two masters degrees (one in physics). In my case drugs weren't a distraction at all; in fact I think I'm a better person for having done them.

I know that's not the case for everyone, of course - your point is valid to some extent - but in my experience it seems these drugs only distract the minds that are kind of weak to begin with.

Edited for grammar.

[Must_B_Free]

14. WE don't assume anything

YOU do, and you seem to be trying to lead the whole dicussion in the direction of assumptions you are willing to make.

All I know is that there were abuses and coverup efforts. I believe much of the documentation was unavailable.

What I wonder is - what were they trying to acheive and how do we know they didn't acheive it in the form of "Lone Nuts" that groom the political and clutural climate for them.

Was Manson a product of MK Ultra to "kill the summer of love"? It sure was terrorism and it sure made the peaceloving hippies into a violent buch didn't it.

Here is some insight into what they wanted, perhaps:

One 1955 MKULTRA document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; the memo refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances which would:

"promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public"

"increase the efficiency of mentation and perception"

"prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol"

"promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol"

"produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc."

"render the indication of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness"

"enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called 'brainwashing'"

"produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use"

"produc shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use"

"produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc."

"produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down"

"alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced"

"cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning"

"lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts"

"promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects"

----

what's with that one I bolded? Interesting...

[ant]

15. that doesn't make sense

Of course you're assuming something: you're assuming the research WAS successful. That's why you believe it has something to do with these conspiracy theories. I don't see how you can get around that.

YOU do, and you seem to be trying to lead the whole dicussion in the direction of assumptions you are willing to make.

What does that mean? How am I leading the discussion anywhere?

I asked what a failure to achieve anything with this research meant for the connections made in the initial post. You pointed out that we don't know whether or not anything was actually achieved. Fair enough, but if we don't know, we don't know...I don't know and you don't know, either. In other words, we can't know if there are any connections at all!

All I know is that there were abuses and coverup efforts. I believe much of the documentation was unavailable.

Right, that is all you know. Exactly my point.

And I don't disagree with you. I think the CIA and the US govt should be held accountable for what they did to people, but that's not what we're talking about here.

[LeahMira]

81. Predictability...

What I wonder is - what were they trying to acheive and how do we know they didn't acheive it in the form of "Lone Nuts" that groom the political and clutural climate for them.

I have no doubt that "someone" experimented with mind altering drugs, whether it was the CIA, FBI, someone else, or all the above. I do think that just as different individuals react differently to various legal drugs, the reaction of any individual to a mind altering drug would depend on the individual... not only his or her own allergies, etc. but also his or her personality. There are so many variables that I'd imagine it would be next to impossible to predict exactly how any one person would react.

Even the most common drugs work that way. My mother could take Anacin, but regular Bayer Aspirin made her sick. Imagine the possibilities with other, less common drugs!

[Must_B_Free]

30. You try to frame it like it was all LSD

"In my mind, it makes sense that they didn't accomplish much with the research because no one else has. The CIA was not alone in researching LSD"

It was also shock treatment and who knows what else. The proper framing is "mind control" and what cen we speculate might be the goals and motivations of such mind control and what have we observed that may be a result of these programs.

Why, for example, would they be interested in making a population "lazy"? What would be the goverment interest in such an effort?

[ant]

43. no, that's just one example

It was also shock treatment and who knows what else.

And people have researched shock treatment as well. Scientists study the MIND, is my point, and you can't keep science secret. Science and technology simply don't work that way. During the Cold War, for instance, the US had top secret satellite surveillance systems, and now you can buy top quality images online. You can buy tiny cameras and all sorts of other espionage-like things freely on the open market now.

My point is that the CIA doesn't control science and scientific research. Anything they discover or create is likely to leak out eventually OR be discovered/created by independent scientists elsewhere. I don't see why this particular topic would follow a different pattern then every other topic.

The proper framing is "mind control" and what cen we speculate might be the goals and motivations of such mind control and what have we observed that may be a result of these programs

You can speculate on goals and motives, sure, I've never had a problem with that. However, I will once again point out that "observing what may be the result of these programs" assumes the programs were successful, and you've already admitted we don't know that.

Again, if you want to assume that, fine, but DO NOT mock or otherwise dismiss those who don't assume the same.

[LeahMira]

83. Misdirection?

Why, for example, would they be interested in making a population "lazy"? What would be the goverment interest in such an effort?

Maybe to give the rest of the population a specific group to scapegoat?

Or maybe the discussion of government experimentation with mind-altering drugs is the misdirection. :shrug:

I think most folks would probably do better to focus on the things we can prove. Unfortunately, there really are a few "lone nuts" out there in the world and just like with anything else, sometimes no one gets to them in time to either help them or stop them. Fact Of Life #123456..

[Name removed]

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[ant]

17. don't change the subject

a conspiracy doesn't HAVE to be successful to be considered as such.

Right, but the initial post made the following claim:

Do you think it bears any connection to Sirhan, Hinkley, Chapman, or John Muhammad?

The poster you treated so rudely simply asked what connection there could be if the research wasn't successful. That was a perfectly reasonable question that did not deserve the response you gave.

if you even bothered to read any of the material on this thread, you'd see that there's a huge body of documentation of CIA attempts in the area of "mind control,"

And where did anyone deny that this research took place?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[shooga]

4. I don't think it's a failure:

check out the book "Trance-Formation"

http://atomic.freeyellow.com/MKULTRAreallydidexist.htm






as far as John Mohammad is concerned:

http://nufon.tripod.com

[Solomon]

64. If they haven't succeeded, that means they're still

trying.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Sirhan Sirhan and the "programmable patsy"

In his book The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, John Marks writes of the CIA's efforts to create a programmed killer via MKULTRA. He quotes a CIA veteran who says the program was unnecessary, as a mercenary can be found to kill anyone for a price. What is more useful is a programmed patsy. According to hypnotists, it's also easier. Marks writes further of a "programmed patsy":

"The purpose of this exercise is to leave a circumstantial trail that will make the authorities think the patsy committed a particular crime. The weakness might well be that the amnesia would not hold up under police interrogation, but that would not matter if the police did not believe his preposterous story about being hypnotized or if he were shot resisting arrest."

Even before Sirhan was identified as a subject, hypnotist William Joseph Bryan said on air in Los Angeles that the assassin was probably mind-controlled, and later bragged to prostitutes about his work for the CIA and having hypnotized Sirhan.

Sirhan was found to be extremely suggestible to hypnosis, and exhibited evidence of having been hypnotized previously, with hypnotic blocks still impeding his memory of the events. There's plentiful evidence that he was in an altered state at the time of the killing, only coming out of it in the police station.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.webcom.com/~lpease/collections/assassinations/rfk.htm

[Octafish]

88. Philip Melanson wrote an excellent overview on RFK assassination...

The professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has written extensively on the subject. There's lots of good info at:

http://www.lib.umassd.edu/ARCHIVES/RFK/RFKGuide.html

http://www.s-t.com/daily/06-97/06-16-97/b01lo040.htm

An interview with Melanson:

http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/melanson.htm

[Must_B_Free]

16. What got me going about the Snipers was "Duck in a Noose"

I have never seen authoorities comply with a terrorists demands by going on air. (but, in a sense, maybe they did in the unibomber case by publishing his long letter it the NY times).

But it seemed unusual that they would announce to the people they were on a man hunt for - "We know you are driving a such and such vehicle"...

It seemed unrealistic to me at the time I was watching it. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

And then when they read "Duck in a Noose" it was like some keyword to end the whole thing. The terrorists pulled over right out in the open at a rest stop and went to sleep. I think John Muhammad even put his wallet on the roof of the car.

[ant]

18. could you tell me more about this

This John Muhammad story is new to me - I know the actual story, I live in the DC area, but I'm not familiar with the conspiracy angle. Any links?

Edited to say never mind, I found it.

[Guaranteed]

36. The Zodiac Killer made demands

and the newspapers and police went along with them.

[Octafish]

89. "Raymond. Would you like to play some solitaire?"

Do you see the Queen of Hearts, Raymond?

[nolabels]

22. Could check this out for years and never get caught up on all of it

I spent a couple hours this morning reading some here. The stuff about the advertizements on the bottom link was a weird.

http://www.davidicke.net/mindcontrol/menu.html

http://www.davidicke.net/mindcontrol/subliminal/bronfman/092000i.html


http://www.nexusmagazine.com/MindControlNWO.html
Mind Control Slavery and the New World Order

(snip)
According to this extremely disturbing report, Monarch Program mind-control survivors claim to have been used as high-tech slaves by certain intelligence agencies and top-ranking politicians
(snip)
Some of this last was a little off kilter, but some of it just might be true

On edit: syntax title

[KFC]

25. Conspiracy Dorks

That is freaking funny. LSD as mind control.

The conspiracy geeks sure have their panties in a bunch lately. Apparently the upcoming ABC documentary has stirred up the dorks.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not after you!

[Minstrel Boy]

27. y'know, "KFC", you're making me think

the Colonel's secret herbs and spices are better at mind control than LSD. :eyes:

MKULTRA is not a paranoid fantasy, and not a joke. We know that all too well in Canada.

The CIA covertly funded experiments in mind control on Canadian psychiatric patients at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal under Dr Ewen Cameron. When this became public in the 1970s it was a national scandal. The victims still suffer.

[julka]

31. right about that monster, Cameron

I was going to show you my link with a google search on Cameron/LSD/CIA, but they DELETED the post, cause I used the "i" word in connection with the hit and run critter who started this thread.

I read, among other things, a book about that whole scene at his clinic in Canada, how it was funded by CIA money, how he imprisoned many poor mental patients, including one of his COLLEAGUES!!!!

he got away with it, IIRC, and was dead, I think, by the time a lawsuit was finally settled, years and years later.

and you can just imagine all the things that have never seen the light of day, and never will.

always wanted to string Richard Helms up by the ankles, let some of those Hanoi Hilton investigators axe him a few questions about JFK, the Shah, things like that.

his daughter is doing quite a job, carrying on the family tradition:doing the bidding of the criminally insane

[Name removed]

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[Media_Lies_Daily]

85. You really don't read much, do you?

[Aries]

26. Checkout this source on mind-control programs:

BLUEBIRD--Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists, By Colin A. Ross MD

"...In this summary of Bluebird, Dr. Ross describes unethical experiments conducted by psychiatrists to create amnesia, new identities, hypnotic access codes, and new memories in the minds of experimental subjects. His research is based on 15,000 pages of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Dr. Ross is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation. Join in powerfully creating a better world for all by spreading the word...

"...Historical Background

The Manchurian Candidate is compelling evidence for the reality of therapist-created multiple personality disorder. The condition has been created deliberately by mind control doctors. Experiments to create Manchurian Candidate “super spies” must be understood in their social and historical context, which is one of pervasive, systematic mind control experimentation, not by a few isolated renegade doctors, but by the leaders of psychiatry and the major medical schools. Because this book is likely to provoke extreme reactions, I have taken great care to present only facts which are fully documented and based on objective, public domain information. P. E

The basic premise of the book The Manchurian Candidate<1> is that a group of American POWs in the Korean War is brainwashed while crossing through Manchuria to freedom. They arrive back in the US amnesic for the period of brainwashing, and one of them has been programmed to be an assassin. His target is a candidate for president of the US. His Asian handlers control him with a hypnotically implanted trigger, a particular playing card. P. 23

Multiple personality disorder is now classified by the American Psychiatric Association<2> as dissociative identity disorder. According to my definition, the Manchurian Candidate is an experimentally created dissociative identity disorder that meets the following four criteria:

Created deliberately
A new identity is implanted
Amnesia barriers are created
Used in simulated or actual operations...."

[WoodrowFan]

32. the same way I ignore

I igone crap like this mind control stuff the same way I ignore the rantings of the homeless woman who hangs out in my town pointing at people at random claiming they are child pornographers and Satanists. Another sad example of how our mental health system has broken down.

[Solomon]

33. Hey Free. Now you done done it! This subject is guaranteed to make

people give you the looney eye. I started studying this a while ago but this is one subject I can't talk to ANYBODY about, even my best friend.

I don't understand why people find the subject ridiculous. Hypnotism works don't it? From what I understand, there are mind control experiments going on where a child is continually frightened and abused so as to create multiple personalities in that person. Then the person will be able to do things in one personality that it would never even think of doing in another.

Anyway, I left it alone when I found I couldn't engage anyone in serious discussion about it. For some reason, people act like it can't happen.

[birdman]

34. Oh wow. Now I'm convinced that the Bushes murdered Bob Marley

Yeah, back in the 50's the CIA experimented with LSD
and a whole lot of other things.

This stuff was outed in the Church committee hearings
back in the 70's. The program itself ended 40 years
ago. What relevance does it have to the conspiratorial craziness
that regularly appears on this board ?

I did strawberry flavored acid and I saw God, man.

[Solomon]

35. Why do you assume it ended

40 years ago and why do you assume that only LSD was/is used?

[birdman]

38. The congressional documents cited in the original post

said it ended in 1963. The CIA did some pretty shady things
in the 50's and that's why the Church committee investigated
it. All that has been public knowledge for quite a while.
Jumping from that to saying that Sirhan and Mark Chapman
and Charles Manson were CIA programmed killers is, shall we say,
quite a stretch.

[paradisiac]

48. It hasn't ended.

The CIA's LSD and electroshock experiments ended a long time ago. But there's research being done today by neuroscientists contracted by our government. I don't know much about the results, but according to a documentary (I saw on Discovery) so far they've been able to manipulate emotions by electromagnetic fields (with a helmet device placed over the head).

The official rationale for this research is the same as in the 1950's: if we don't develop the technology our enemies will, we may require the technology to fight back and defend ourselves. It was the mind control technology supposedly developed by the USSR and China in the 1950's that spurred the first wave of research in the USA (but the communists hadn't actually developed mind control, they mostly just tortured people which brought about a very short term "reprogramming").

[Octafish]

42. Always with the humor! Excellent.

So the CIA told Congress they stopped with the mind control experimentation. That makes it true, right? At least that's what supporters of the BFEE would think. Well perhaps they shouldn't, especially when considering George Bush Sr. was the head of the CIA at the time.

"The Man Who Wasn't There, 'George Bush,' C.I.A. Operative"

By Joseph McBride

THE NATION, July 16/23, 1988

EXCERPT...

Bush's duties with the C.I.A. in 1963 -- whether he was an agent, for example, or merely an "asset" -- cannot be determined from Hoover's memo. However, the intelligence source (who worked with the agency in the late 1950s and through the 1960s) said of the Vice President: "I know he was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination: There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the C.I.A."

The initial reaction of Senator Frank Church, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to the firing of William Colby and the naming of Bush as Director of Central Intelligence in 1975 was to complain that it was part of a pattern of attempts by President Gerald Ford (a former member of the Warren Commission) to impede the Church committee's nearly concluded investigation into C.I.A. assassination plots, with which Colby was cooperating but which Ford was trying vainly to keep secret.

Asked recently about Bush's early C.I.A. connections, (former Texas Democratic Senator Ralph) Yarborough said, "I never heard anything about it. It doesn't surprise me. What surprised me was that they picked him for Director of Central Intelligence -- how in hell he was appointed head of the C.I.A. without any experience of knowledge." Hoover's memo "explains something to me that I've wondered about. It does make sense to have a trained C.I.A. man, with experience, appointed to the job."

Bush's C.I.A. connections might throw new light on his knowledge of the *contra* funding and supply operation, and his alleged knowledge of *contra* drug smuggling and the activities of General Noriega. It is worth noting in this context that, as Leslie Cockburn writes in "Out of Control," "The anti-Castro C.I.A. team in Florida were already drawing attention to their drug-smuggling activities by 1963," and that it was Felix Rodriguez, the C.I.A., "alumnus who wore Che Guevara's watch and counted George Bush among his friends," who allegedly coordinated a $10 million payment to the *contras* by the Colombian cocaine cartel.

CONTINUED...

http://inquirer.gn.apc.org/bush_story.html

BTW: More background on MK/ULTRA for your enjoyment, birdman:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks.htm



"With humor, comrade! Always with humor!"

[9215]

54. Damn Octafish, this another one for the files

Bush was possibly chosen to impede the Church Committee. Wonder what made Church think Bush would do this?

I'm always looking for more stuff on Bush as CIA head.

In addition Colby ended up dying in a mysterious boating accident after telling one of his colleagues to bug out of an investigation because it was too dangerous.

[Octafish]

72. Colby was a Kennedy man.

From what I've read and remember, Colby was one of the good guys. He was helping spill the beans on the criminality at the highest levels his successor Poppy Bush squashed. Stansfield Turner tried to finish the job, but encountered the fiercest resistance from the same highest levels.

In trying to discover something about the death of Mr. Colby — he was an experienced paddler who always wore a life jacket, yet drowned on a day with 2-foot swells and 25 mph winds — I discovered he was an early opponent to the way the war in Vietnam was a Saigon station chief who went on to oppose the conduct of the war. Like several other top US military and intelligence professionals, few in Washington believed him — after the Kennedy assassination.

Here's an excerpt from an astounding essay:

The American Origins of the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Absent-Minded Congress

EXCERPT...

On May 11, 1961, President Kennedy approved the National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 52, prompting an increase in “covert paramilitary operations” against North Vietnam, in addition to an increase in the amount of forces needed to conduct these operations (Moïse 3).  For the first time, the Kennedy Administration not only wanted to send spies into the interior of the DRV , they also wanted to send heavily armed teams into North Vietnam (Moïse 3).

As previously mentioned, the United States government made every effort to conceal its covert operations from the American public, even if senior officials in Hanoi discovered that these operations were taking place.  William Colby was the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) station chief in Saigon. (Colby later transferred to Washington D.C. to take charge of all CIA covert operations conducted throughout the entire Far East.)  He explained the extent to which the CIA concealed their operations from the American public: “In order to provide a ‘plausible denial’ that the Vietnamese or the American government was involved in these operations, I set up an alleged Vietnamese private air-transport corporation—VIAT—and arranged that it contract with some experienced pilots from the Agency’s old friends in Taiwan” (Moïse 3).

However, this “plausible denial’ was in jeopardy when, in July 1, 1961, one of the planes was shot down in the Ninh Binh Province of North Vietnam (Moïse 3).  The Hanoi press published confessions made by the men aboard, stating that they had been trained by Americans and sent by the RVN (Moïse 3).

By 1963, William Colby, who was then in Washington D. C., became disenchanted with the operations the CIA was conducting against the North Vietnamese; an alarming number of agents were being killed or captured as they were sent into North Vietnam (Moïse 4).  At this point, the United States military took control of the operations, and, by December 15, 1963, the CIA and MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) worked out a new series of operations, known as OPLAN 34A (Moïse 5).  President Johnson approved a modified version of OPLAN 34A on January 16, 1964, and the first stages of these operations were to take place from February through May of 1964 (Moïse 6).

CONTINUED...

http://www.howardcc.edu/english/scribe/scribe%20essays%2003.htm

[9215]

55. Why do you consistently extend the benefit of the doubt

to the probable crooks and never to those investigating them?


Then we find out later that the CIA was behind the dumping of cocaine in LA about 20 years ago. Is that too long ago to be relevant?

Are you on downers?

[TomNickell]

75. And Timothy Leary.....

Died of cancer, so they say.

OBVIOUSLY, the Bushes caused it.

[maha]

39. None of this is news to me.

I remember reading about this stuff back in the 1960s.

Do you deny it? Do you shrug it off? Or do you accept it as fact?

Dulles was nutty enough to have tried something like this, so I don't doubt there was such a program.

If you know what it is, what do you suppose it was for?

What everything else was for back then -- to eradicate the Red Menace.

Do you think it bears any connection to Sirhan, Hinkley, Chapman, or John Muhammad?

No. How could it? It didn't work.

[Minstrel Boy]

40. No tinfoil here - CIA settled out of court with Canadian victims

From the transcript of a documentary on CIA mind control experiments on Canadian psychiatric patients (The Fifth Estate, January 6 1998):

When Canadians first learned that CIA brainwashing experiments had been carried out on Canadians in Canada, with the knowledge of our government, it was a tremendous shock. As the Fifth Estate was first to report in 1984, the work that Dr. Ewen Cameron oversaw at his Montreal clinic was shocking.

...

Announcer: In the 1960s Dr. Ewen Cameron conducted CIA funded experiments on troubled Canadian patients he was meant to help.

Male victim: It wasn't treatment for anything. It was out and out guinea pigs for brainwashing experiments.

http://www.raven1.net/cameron.htm

This isn't tinfoil stuff up here. We know it happened to our people. It isn't hidden from us anymore; it's part of our history.

Nine of the survivors launched an eight-year lawsuit against the CIA. In 1988, it agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $750,000.

At the time of Cameron's work, Canadian prisons were conducting a covert mind control program using LSD on behalf of the CIA: "The Ottawa Citizen published an expose drawn from interviews, archives, scientific journals and correspondence between doctors and prison officials. It found that hundreds of federal prisoners throughout Canada were used for pharmaceutical trials of untested drugs, sensory deprivation, and pain and electroshock studies. It uncovered a 1968 trial during which defendant Christine Bauman claimed that she suffered terrifying personality changes after being given LSD in 1961 at the Institute for Psychotherapy, not far from Kingston Prison where she had been incarcerated.

"By late 1999, additional Canadian women and men came forward to claim they were used in prison and hospital experiments in the 1960s and 1970s. A class-action suit against the prison system was filed anonymously by "Jane Doe," a 75-year-old grandmother who realized after reading newspaper stories that she was one of the 23 women who were given LSD and other terrifying "treatments" without their consent while in prison."
http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr300-mkultra.html

[fsbooks]

46. We ought to thank them

After all, the CIA grants to Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were in part responsible for the psychedelic 60's.

BTW, my father worked at the Psychological Assessment Associates (PAA), a CIA front organization headed by John Gittinger, head psychologist of the CIA. I must say, they had the best collection of psychedelic books I have ever seen, pretty interesting for a teenager in the late sixties/early 70's.

[RandomKoolzip]

49. What I've gathered from reading this thread...

is this odd tendency for otherwise curious and open-minded people to automatically dismiss any idea of a conspiracy existing by exploding any basic premise a conspiracy advocate postulates into absurd, misrepresenting proportions. Example: One poster typed up a bunch of facts concerning the CIA's well-known, well-documented experiments in Mind Control by comparing the author to a homeless bag lady; another responded by smugly insinuating that the author believes Bob Marley was killed by the government and other things which were not included in the original argument. This strikes me as incredibly odd behavior for self-proclaimed liberals. Where is your curiosity? Where is the anti-authoritarian spirit here?

My own bookshelves contain a fair amount of conspiracy literature, and I refuse to make a hard and fast "this happened, goddamnit!" position on any of it, simply because I believe what I can see, hear, smell, touch and taste first hand more than I believe speculation. My fascination with conspiracy theories derives from an interest in alternate histories, a kind of "underground stream" flowing through your social studies textbooks in high school, leading to a larger ocean of possibilities. As a child, my father was a Kennedy Assassination buff, and my brother subscribed to MUFON, the UFO journal. I always found their pursuits mind-opening and like manna for a curious brain. You NEED to ask questions about history, because as any historian will tel you, history is written by and for the ruling classes, deliberately omitting unpleasant information concerning the great rabble of humanity. Spin, in other words.

Today we see the desperate amount of spin generated from the White House, Fox News, The Intelligence community on a daily basis. What makes you think that earlier mambers of the establishment weren't committing nefarious atrocities, then covering it up? Spinning? DO you think the horrid species of lie emanating from the mouths of the current administration is unique? Or did previous administrations engage in ileegal, murderous, secretive activity as well, and "Spin" it like Bush does? Surely we all remember that Watergate was dismissed as a "Wacko, crackpot" theory until Cox was fired as special prosecuter. Keeping an open mind and doubting the authority of the president on the part of the media would have helped get Nixon out of office a lot faster. Right now we are witnessing a conspiracy on a grand, almost genocidal, scale unfold in the middle east, as Bush's secret plan to secure the Iraq oil pipeline is called something else, and the facts concerning said story are doctored to be consumed by the masses via media outlets which are systematically paid off by large multi-natioanl corporations. Sounds like a conspiaracy theory, no? Well, that's what's happening!

Anyone intersted in 20th century American history owes it to him/herself to check out several books about conspiracies. Victor Marchetti's "The Cia and The Cult of Intelligence" is one. Robert Anton Wilson's "Everything is Under Control" is another. These books, and many others, provide an alternate perspective to the one we've been forcefed all our lives. And like I said, reading these books doesn't immediately make you a "wacko." You don't have to believe them, but I suggest one reads and digests the information before making smug, sweeping generalizations. If anything, they're interesting reading, and lively to boot.

On a personal note, my wife thinks, or thought, all conspiracy theories are "crackpot" wacko stuff, but that all flew out the window with the Iraq War and one viewing of "Wag the Dog." I'd been telling her all this stuff that would happen before it would happen, and when we'd watch the news together I'd make predictions that would come true, like Ari Fleischer leaving, the American people swallowing the big lie about the connection twixt Iraq and 9/11, the sniper distaction just as the US was getting a foothold on the Iraq border, etc. And she'd ask me, how did you know that was going to happen? Then I'd point her in the direction of my bookshelf.

[G_j]

53. nice to read

a constructive contributon to a thread that could be more interesting and less antagonistic.

[9215]

59. I second that

[Solomon]

60. Hear Hear. I'll third that.

:smoke:

[spindoctor]

50. Everybody did LSD in the 60's

Although I don't remember doing it myself, or where I used to live at that time...what is the CIA anyway?

[birdman]

51. Oh wow, man, it's just like so confusing

I guess it's the CIA's fault that I don't remember
the years between 1966 and 1975.

[SeattleRob]

52. Interesting thread...

There are a lot of unanswered questions about MKULTRA progam. It DID exist and to say that it ended in 1963 is as much a stretch as to say that Manson, Hinkley, and John Mohammed were all "Manchurian Candidates." I think there is enough documented information to at least look at the issue with an open mind. One of the best books I've read on this subject was "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press"
By Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. Ths book documents the history of CIA and drugs (fromn our hiring ex-Nazi's, to the CIA giving unsuspecting people LSD, to cover-ups of murder)and also shows that Gary Webb was absoulutely correct when he wrote about the CIA allowing Crack Cocaine to be smuggled into Los Angeles to fund the Contra war in Central America for the San Jose Mercury. The American press has been complicit in allowing these abuses to happen. Does anybody remember the famous New York Times (oh the liberal press!) headline "CIA Clears Itself."

You can look at this issue and examine the evidence or you can put your head in the sand and ridicule people for talking about these issues. I try to keep an open mind.

[Must_B_Free]

69. There's alot of convergent threads in recent history

- art of war - devide and conquer - destabilize the enemy.

- stated goal of find a way to make a population lazy through minescule dispersement of drugs.

- Chomskys document about putting up appearances as a matter of policy to keep the unfair advantage.

- aids - devistational to the homosexual and African communities. modern day small pox. (geometric progression of disease exceeded gestation period - it was distributed to masses that didn't get it from sex, perhaps in vaccinations or other medications).

- devistation of urban black communities with crack cocaine, said to be brought in by CIA.

- assassination or otherwise untimely death of populist figures (i know, all coincidences...)

- eschelon - which supposedly "doesn't exist" and the winning of european contracts through espionage.

- you can see the propaganda live on tv, (an assumption I am making for this audience, not going to debate this).

- Finally, the War on Iraq itself - a clear and visible forgery of reality that failed.

I'm just saying that I'm not willing to discount conspiracies because they follow a very common predictable theme.

All of these things can exist quite nicely if you abandon the idea that our most powerful members of society really want the best for us and embrace the time proven idea that power people really just want as much as they can get and are willing to do whatever it takes to keep others from competing and having a chance.

I'm not saying they're all true, and I pose MK Ultra as a concrete example of something that is as yet, unanswered. I submit that possibly some of these things we "laugh off" might actually be holding some secrets.

[bobthedrummer]

56. US mind control "research" began when Allen Dulles approved

Richard McGarrah Helms proposal on 4-13-53, it involved at least 149 sub-projects at 80 institutions. Source:4-16-85 Burger decision CIA vs. Sims FOIA case.

Some of these projects have continued to the present day IMO.

Last year an investigative reporter won a Federal Court order to open some of the MK ULTRA operational files that survived Helms shredding, about 16,000 mostly financial docs that had been misfiled.
http://www.rcfp.org/news/2002/0819kellyv.html

Dennis Kucinich mentioned mind control in the original text of HR2977 Space Preservation Act of 2001, but the text regarding "exotic weapons" was disappeared from the revision HR3616 Space Preservation Act of 2002.
http://www.raven1.net/govptron.htm

Mind control is an emotion provoking term, an unfortunate one-I define it as the manipulation of human perceptions for unknown political agendas, it is quite real and quite secret.

There are a number of websites on mind control that deal with all kinds of fantastic tin foil hat claims, but there are a few that are rather good for researchers with pretty reputable sources.
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/

http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/

http://www.raven1.net/ravindex.htm

Some of the current mind control programs focus more on the use of electromagnetic radiation/EMR {microwaves} and radio frequency radiation/RFR as well as computer science in addition to the drugs and hypnosis from past programs-IMO most of this could be black budget or hidden in research grants.

Here is but one example of what this research does, foreign elections have been influenced by aerial mind control
http://www.raven1.net/commsolo.htm

There was a covert arms race between the US and USSR to operationalize these systems, we won that one too.
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~welsh/book.htm

All I know is that it is a very real and controversial unpopular subject-IMHO a critically important one and I'm glad to see it discussed here at DU.

[9215]

58. I was told by someone in the mental health profession, specifically

psychiatry, that there was a sharp increase in pschizophrenia patients in the 50's. Since LSD cause these kinds of symptoms he thought it may have been the result of CIA mind control experiments.

I don't have any facts to back it up, just thought you may have heard something on this.

[Silverhair]

57. Mind control research is old news.

Have you ever seen the movie, "The Manchurian Candidate"? It was advertized back then as, "Don't be five minutes late or you won't know what is going on." It has the Chinese "brainwashing" some Americans. Neat flick. That the CIA looked at and experimented with mind control ain't news. That was know a long time ago.

To go from the CIA experimenting with it to: "Sirhan was a brainwased patsy" is a faaaaaar streeeeeeetch. Like next door to space aliens.

The Committe for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranorma, in their magazine, "Skeptical Inquirer" has had some good articles on hypnosis. I'n not going to use time researching to find the articles. Here is their web site if you are interested: http://www.csicop.org/si/

[Must_B_Free]

67. Detraction technique #4762

the old "it's old news" technique. Seen this one alot lately.

I got news for you, this technique is tired and washed out... Been there, done that.

Why did the CIA want to figure out how to make a population lazy? Got any ideas?

[Clark Can WIN]

70. Do you accept anything that anyone says who does not agree with you

Or are we not allowed to our own opinions?

I put precious little stock in conspiracy theories, never have. Too many rest on threads so tenuous the smallest freakin' spider in the world couldn't use them. And I don't see what LSD and psych experiments had to do with it anyway.

Of course the govornment does crazy shit. They always have but you can't hide the truth forever. I believe what can be proven, not maybe if a + b was really q then f and j are aliens.

[Must_B_Free]

71. "you can't hide the truth forever"

so when do you think the truth was uncovered about the Native American Genocide? How long did that stay hidden?

[Silverhair]

78. ???? That was never hidden. It was openly bragged about.

Remember the phase of some famous general of those times: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian". We openly and blantanly wiped out the buffalo to wipe out the Plains Indians food supply. We openly attacked and killed entire villages. We sent the Cherokee on a death march that makes the Bataan Death March look like an afternoon hike. It wasn't a secret conspiracy.

[Solomon]

61. And Think About Who Knows what God awful things they did to

children. Makes me shudder.

[Isome]

62. Here a conspiracy, there a conspiracy, everywhere a conspiracy...

The widow and children of a researcher who committed suicide in 1953 after being after being made an unwitting participant in a Central Intelligence Agency drug experiment said today that they planned to sue the agency for his "wrongful death."

In an interview at their home, Alice W. Olson and her three children said that they learned the circumstances of Frank R. Olson's death after the Rockefeller commission disclosed last month that C.I.A. files showed a suicide had occurred during the 10-year agency program of administering the drug LSD to unsuspecting subjects to learn its effects.

.::Link::.

.::More on Frank Olson::. ordeal and his son's quest for the truth. If you read the entire thing, you'll be depressed; don't do it. No, I'm kidding. Read it all. It's got newspaper stories about his death and the family's reception at the WH, when Ford apologized.

You'll realize that though the cries of conspiracy seem far-fetched at times, actually it's that you, personally, aren't devious. Consequently, wrapping your mind around the fact that there have been, and are, government officials and representatives who employ malevolent ideas/experiments that hurt innocent or unwitting citizens of this country (or others), is too difficult to process.

[Must_B_Free]

68. "too difficult to process"

I think that's why people just "hang up" and spew stuff about space aliens and elvis - to try to ridicule it so they don't feel obliged to ponder it.

Good thing we have channels like Fox News to tell us that there's no such thing as mind control. :eyes:

[Isome]

63. an MKUltra *kick*

[jobycom]

65. Ah yes, the CIA meets Animal House proves that every crime ever was

committed by CIA mind control and covert time travel operations. Guess who got Julius Caesar? Guess who stabbed Ali? Who really made Eve take that bite? Why, the CIA, of course!

Geeze. John Muhammad? Christ.

Notice how the article says that the CIA never achieved most of their goals in mind control? Aside from slipping each other acid and laughing about it, I mean.

[Must_B_Free]

66. "CIA never achieved most of their goals in mind control"

so you are asserting that some of the goals were acheived?

Well, I guess you demonstrated the point of how people deal with the cognitive dissonance - they laugh at it.

Do you really feel safer behind your strawman?

[Octafish]

90. The family of Frank Olson don't find it funny.

Their dad killed himself after the CIA used him to test LSD in MK/ULTRA. Here's some news on the subject, who was recently disinterred for forensic examination. BTW: This was a crime that poisoned a healthy man — the result of a conspiracy by members of the US government...



EXCERPT...

Another tantalizing case involves scientist Frank Olson, who died shortly after returning from CIA-sponsored LSD experiments in Deep Creek, Md. The CIA insists the scientist committed suicide by jumping from a New York City hotel window in 1953. After exhuming Olson and performing an autopsy in 1993, Starrs' team of medical examiners concluded that "Olson had probably been struck on the head and then thrown out of the hotel window."

CONTINUED ...on forensics and exhumations...

http://www.insightmag.com/news/525697.html

MORE ON FRANK OLSON...

http://www.frankolsonproject.org/index.html

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/news/olson_cia_lsd1.htm

[TomNickell]

73. THIS IS NOT (not) A 'CONSPIRACY THEORY'.....

The CIA does dastardly deeds. Never been doubted. This particular one is not new. Been in the open press for a long time.

You still need EVIDENCE before accusing them of elaborate plots that require superhuman powers.

[Octafish]

77. CIA: Conspiracies In Action

You put your finger on the crux of the biscuit. The idea that there are crazy ideas gets confused with the fact there are criminal conspiracies taking place in the highest levels of government. The following is important background for those who are new to the subject. — Octafish

CIA powers and 1975 Church Committee

Report by Paul Wolf
Published here: 22/09/01

The cry for expanded CIA assassination powers is being supported by a lot of inaccurate references to the 1975 Church Committee investigation. “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans,” as their final report was called, was the most in-depth investigation into the American intelligence establishment ever made.

Reporters are claiming that the Church Committee tied the hands of the CIA, and now it’s time to restore their power to use whatever ruthless and inhumane means may be necessary to implement our foreign policies. In fact, although the Church Committee exposed a closet full of nightmarish operations carried out against American citizens, and some of the CIA’s activities in Chile, it was by no means an accounting of CIA atrocities around the world, and had no legal implications whatsoever. Its function was simply to inform the public of the widespread abuses that were being committed in their midst.

Among other things, the Church Committee revealed that:

* a CIA program to open mail to or from selected American citizens generated 1.5 million names stored in the Agency’s computer bank.
* intelligence units within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created files on over one million Americans.
* the FBI carried out five hundred thousand investigations of so-called subversives from 1960 to 1974, without a single court conviction.
* computers in the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored every cable sent overseas, or received, by Americans from 1947 to 1975.
* Army intelligence units conducted investigations against one hundred thousand American citizens during the Vietnam War era.
* the CIA engaged in drug experiments (the MK/ULTRA Project) against unsuspecting subjects (two of whom died from side effects).
* at least two foreign leaders were the direct targets of CIA assassination plots (none successful).
* letters written anonymously by FBI agents were designed to incite violence among blacks.
* the FBI COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) targeted civil rights activists and Vietnam War dissidents.
* the FBI attempted to blackmail civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and encouraged him to commit suicide.
* the CIA manipulated elections in democratic regimes (Chile was but one of several).
* the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allowed tax information to be misused by intelligence agencies for political purposes.
* intelligence agencies carried out burglaries in the homes and offices of suspected “subversives”.
* the CIA infiltrated religious, media, and academic organizations.

(Source: America’s Secret War: The CIA in a Democratic Society, by Loch K. Johnson, Oxford University Press,1989)

CONTINUED...

http://www.labournet.net/world/0109/us15.html

[bobthedrummer]

74. Mind control victims/survivors websites

Real people were experimented upon, mostly unwittingly, regardless of your personal views on this controversial topic-this is a fact. It started a long time ago and it continues in the same general fields of psychiatry and national security. There are websites for survivors.

http://www.aches-mc.org/

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~welsh/index.htm

[TomNickell]

76. PsychoKinesis, telepathy, Clairvoyance....

The CIA was also experimenting with Paranormal phenomena at one time. Afraid the Commies were ahead.

We could make up a whole bunch of grand conspiracies around that!

[bobthedrummer]

80. STARGATE and remote viewing projects went on for over 20 years

there are commercial spin-offs from these programs so some type of results were achieved IMO.

Here is a SAIC spin-off site
http://www.lfr.org/csl/index.shtml

[Octafish]

84. Robert Monroe: "Journeys Out of the Body"

The late author described his process for separating his consciousness from his body in his works. Others picked up on it, including Langley. Funny, the ancients talked about these things...

[emad]

79. Great to see that veteran DU Poster 'Name Removed':

such a frequent contributor to these pages, especially on subjects connected with 'conspiracy theories are just a conspiracy', religion, rubbishing astrologers and hawkers of paranormal lore in the DU meeting room and all those trying to offer psychic advice through their pay as you surf websites.

How many more new DU members will it take before someone logs on as 'Locking Thread' as their user name?

[bobthedrummer]

82. MK ULTRA human experimentation timeline

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~welsh/timeline.htm

[bobthedrummer]

86. Serious implications for mental health professionals-psychotronics

On the Need for New Criteria of Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind Invasive Technology by Carole Smith
http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/NewCrit-JPSS-CS2.htm

Psychotronic Golgotha
by a Russian survivors advocate
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~welsh/golgotha.htm

It must be remembered that there was a covert war between US and USSR to develop these systems which US won. There is always collateral damage, in this case mental illness.

[nolabels]

87. Just one more reason to spend more time here, and less time at

other sites (That is if you’re looking to find anything out)

I was looking for something Humorous and found the site below, it had lots of bells and whistles but no substance. It occurs to me if one wanted to see flashy pictures they would slip in a DVD and veg. The DUer site might get some false information once in while but it also makes up for it many times over with other things that go on here. It gets good relevant and up to the minute information and things that blow the socks anybody in the know. It tears off the facade that’s been erected in this Corporate led mass conspiracy to keep the real facts from people. I just want to say thanks again, you guys.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/

[Must_B_Free]

91. Thom Hartman just did a show on Rev. Moon

and his mind control techniques.

Apparently, "astroturf" is one of his specialties.

Moon has taken over the GOP right, to where one of his events is now a GOP event.

For those who aren;t familiar with Moon - he is the new messiah sent to complete Jesus Christ's failed mission on Earth.

My hunch is that the right will engineer a plausible Biblical "Apocalypse" that will enable them to complete prophecy (at least as far as masses of followers believe) and effectively write the next book of the Bible. (New World Order)

All it takes is some special effects and manipulation of events.

Thom also mentioned that one of Moon's right hand men (Bo Pak or Park) is also an employee of the CIA.

[Octafish]

92. blm is expert on the topic.

Bush
Loves
Moonies

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zeroes/Sun_Myung_Moon.html

Jerry Falwell owes Moon, Big Time!



Lots o' links from an interesting site:

http://www.retakingamerica.com/sun_myung_moon_001.html