Key Takeaways
From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s , men in San Francisco who patronize lady of pleasure ran the risk of becoming unwitting participants in aclandestine CIA experiment . It was design to test whether the combination of sexual urge and thehallucinogenic drug LSDmight regulate the man to reveal info that the government wanted . What information , nobody is really sure .
The experimentation , sleep with asOperation Midnight Climaxinside the CIA , was part of a larger research program code - namedMKULTRA . The agencylaunched MKULTRAout of worries that the Soviet Union had explicate a mind - control drug .
CIA officials had observed the vacant gaze and trance - same behaviour of Hungarian clericCardinal József Mindszentyat a show test in Budapest in 1949 . They were convinced that his confession had been extract with chemicals , according to a 1977 New York Times articleand decided that the U.S. needed to have similar capabilities .
The CIA and LSD
According to theRockefeller Commission Reportfrom the mid-1970s , headed by then - Vice President Nelson Rockefeller that look into CIA activeness , the initial design for MKULTRA was to use CIA enlistee as test subjects in experiment conducted under the watchful centre of a doc . But after some experiment necessitate voluntary participants , the agency decided to see what would happen when subjects were give way LSDwithouttheir noesis .
" Tests were start out on unsuspicious subjects in normal societal situations,“according to the report . " Testing originally was conducted on the West Coast . In 1961 , a similar programme was initiate on the East Coast . "
Gottlieb seek the help ofGeorge Hunter White , a federal narcotics factor who during World War II had served in the Office of Strategic Services — the harbinger of the CIA — and subsequently knead as an police detective for Sen. Estes Kefauver ’s early 1950s investigation of unionised crime , asdetailed in this 1977 Washington Post articlebased upon White ’s diary and other papers .
Operation Midnight Climax Was Born
After getting approval fromHarry Anslinger , head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics , White became a CIA consultant . It ’s unclear whether Anslinger knew that the consulting tariff would need setting up a CIA - financed cathouse in an flat in the Telegraph Hill section of San Francisco and a like regime - hightail it bagnio in New York City ’s Greenwich Village .
While intelligence service agencies had often used female agents to score objective , " Gottlieb wanted to systematise the study of how sex , especially in combination with drugs , could tease men ’s tongues , " diary keeper Stephen Kinzer write in his 2019 book , " Poisoner in Chief : Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control . "
In San Francisco , the CIApaid prostitutes $ 100for each potential subject that they picked up at local bars and lured back to the brothel . It was located in an L - work flat with a opinion of the San Francisco Bay , with moving-picture show ofFrench can - can dancerson the walls and red chamber curtains , as well as a refrigerator that White kept filled with chilled martinis .
The men did n’t love that the bordello was wired with whatThe Washington Post described in 1977as elaborate electronic surveillance equipment , including four microphones disguised as rampart outlets and connected to taping recording machine monitored by agents in a cloak-and-dagger observation post . The room also was equip withtwo - style mirrors , which enabled agent towatch and to filmwhat happened when the male customers went into the bedroom with the bawd .
" The original intention was to have a document sound moving-picture show , you might say , so that we would know something about the behaviour of people when they were lot these drugs,“Gottlieb bear witness in a September 1977 Senate earreach .
The Ethics of Dosing Unwitting Men With LSD
Giving a powerful psychedelic drug to unwitting subjects , of grade , was a dangerously irresponsible thing to do , considering that LSD can causeeffects resembling psychosis — what hippies in the sixties referred to as a regretful trip .
" At the most basic point , the want of informed consent and the unwitting subject ’s lack of information on adverse effect and potential consequences is of outstanding concern,“Joseph Troiani , Ph.D. , explains via electronic mail . Troiani is an associate professor of clinical psychology and origination film director of the Military Psychology Program atAdler Universityand retreat military intelligence officer , who is familiar with MKULTRA from reading open - source material that has become available .
" nous control experiments like these , employ LSD ( psychotropic drug ) , administer to individuals unbeknown to them to see what effect it would have on them , rape all medical banner , " Troiani says . " There is a analogue between the CIA ’s operation and theTuskegee experimentswhere African Americans were lie to about being treated for syphilis . The Tuskegee experiment patient were not treat for syphilis ; instead , they were given placebo intervention and monitored to see progression of unwellness . These actions are unethical and criminal in nature . "
Operation Midnight Climax and the rest of MKULTRA ran into problems in 1963 , when astafferin the spot of CIA ’s Inspector General John S. Earman discovered them while auditing the CIA ’s technical service sectionalization . The IG was appall by the impropriety of dose unsuspecting the great unwashed with a hallucinogen , according to the Rockefeller Commission report .
Worse yet , the IG ’s probe hear that some mental test issue had become sick for hours or days afterward , and that at least one had to be hospitalized .
" A final phase angle of the testing of MKULTRA product rank the right field and sake of U.S. citizens in jeopardy,“the IG ’s July 1963 story note , adding that if the program was ever expose it " could induct serious adverse reaction in U.S. public persuasion . "
The CIA’s Operation Midnight Climax Is Terminated
As a result of the IG investigation , the CIA geld back on the drug - examination program , though between 1963 and 1967 it keep to examine drugs on what theRockefeller Commission Report describedas " voluntary subjects , " including prisoners at various correctional foundation . eventually , in 1967 , " all projects involving deportment - determine drug were terminate , " according to the Rockefeller Commission Report .
After Operation Midnight Climax and the rest of MKULTRA was unwrap during the mid-1970s , then - CIA director Stansfield Turner described the psychedelic spy house of ill repute as " obscene " and need San Francisco for forgiveness , fit in to a transcriptof the telly broadcast . Turner emphasized that the CIA no longer was conducting such experiments .
It ’s unclear what , if any , useful insight that the CIA gained from watching and listening to the drugged bordello customer . " I think the conclusion from all the activities [ of MKULTRA ] was that it was very difficult to predictably manipulate human behavior in this way , " Gottlieb admit in his 1977 Senate testimony .
