THE

CIA-LSD

STORY

IN

RETROSPECT

Leo Goldberger

In: Roland, Friedlander, Mttller-Hill (Eds.)

MEDICAL SCIENCE WITHOUT COMPASSION: PAST AND PRESENT

Proceedings of the Hamburger Stiftnng fiir Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jarhnndert, 1991.
I t i s n o t a p r e t t y s t o r y, b u t t h e n t h e v e r y m e n t i o n o f t h e
CIA conjures up nasty business — concerns far removed from the
I v o r y To w e r o f S c i e n c e . Ye t , a s w e k n o w o n l y t o o w e l l , t h e w o r l d
of science does intermesh with the world of affairs, politics,
a n d p o w e r, a n d m o r e o f t e n t h a n n o t t h e s e w o r l d s m a y c o l l i d e i n
terms

of

their

implicit

and

all

too

frequently

unexamined

assumptions and value systems. This was obviously the case in
the USA when, during the 1950s and 1960s, some major breaches in
the conduct of human experimentation occurred.
These

breaches

were

not

limited

to

the

administration

of

LSD

and other psychoactive or unproven drugs to unsuspecting persons

(soldiers, college students, and psychiatric patients) as guinea
pigs, but involved a long list of other macabre interventions,
such as radiation, harassment substances, and paramilitary
devices and materials. In some experiments, certain drastic
forms of sensory deprivation and immobilizing drugs, such as

curare and Sernyl, were also used. In other experiments, sensory

deprivation was combined with so-called "psychic driving"
t e c h n i q u e s , t h e b r a i n c h i l d o f D r. E w e n C a m e r o n , a p r o m i n e n t
p s y c h i a t r i s t o f h i s d a y, i n w h i c h p s y c h i a t r i c p a t i e n t s w e r e

e x p o s e d t o t h e i n t e n s i v e r e p e t i t i o n ( 1 6 h r. a d a y f o r s i x t o
seven days or more) of prearranged verbal signals while receiving
intensive electric shocks. Rather risky undertakings, based on

h a r e b r a i n e d , p s e u d o - s c i e n t i fi c i d e a s a n d m o s t c e r t a i n l y a c l e a r
breach

of

ethics.

The

use

of
3 6 7

various

modes

of

indirect

 personality assessment procedures and invasive techniques was
also highly questionable. Mercifully, some techniques, such as
neurosurgery (for the purpose of exploring the pain center), were
apparently ruled out as too dangerous.^

The guilty parties, who entered into a Faustian-like pact
with the CIA, compromising their scientific credo, belonged to
several distinct categories, categories that became less and less

d i s t i n c t w i t h t i m e . T h e r e w e r e , fi r s t o f a l l , t h e s o - c a l l e d C I A
Te c h n i c a l S t a f f , s c i e n t i s t s a m o n g t h e m , w h i c h i n t h e c a s e o f t h e

behavioral sciences (a term I shall use to include a variety of
disciplines in the life sciences as well as the social sciences

and mental health fields) was very limited in number. In fact,
the person who quickly rose to become the head of the CIA's Mind-

C o n t r o l u n i t . D r. S i d n e y G o t t l i e b , a p r o t e g e o f t h e C I A D i r e c t o r

himself, Richard Helms, was a pharmacologist with a biochemistry
doctorate

who

had

served

in

the

Te c h n i c a l

Service

Division's

chemical wing, working with germs and other unspeakable weaponry.
B u t D r. G o t t l i e b s o o n f o u n d a c a d r e o f w i l l i n g p s y c h o l o g i s t s a n d
psychiatrists

as

fully

committed

hired

hands

or,

in

some

instances, as consultants, on call when the need arose. It was

principally this more limited group that crossed the usually
untraversed

chasm

between

the

CIA's

Te c h n i c a l

Division

and

the

Operational Division, the latter being the division whose agents
a r e r e s p o n s i b l e f o r fi e l d o p e r a t i o n s , t h o s e w h o a c t u a l l y d o t h e

dirty work.^
The second category consisted of a sizable number of
scientists,

many

of

whom

were,

or

at

least

claim

to

have

been,

blissfully unaware of their connection to the CIA. (One ought to
note, for what it's worth, that according to the CIA, one-fourth
3 6 8

 of the American scientists who were approached by the CIA agreed

to work for itl)^ They were the recipients of grants from a few
private medical research foundations, three or four in all, that
served as secret conduits for research funding, by and large of
the pure science variety, but research that held immediate or
potential interest for the CIA.

Some scientists received grants for work that clearly had

little if any CIA relevance; however, their projects and
publications, which typically acknowledged the foundation grant,
served as a cover. Their names added luster to the CIA front

foundation, making the foundation's work seem legitimate. This
was so in the case of Carl Rogers, for example, the well-known
f o u n d e r o f c l i e n t - c e n t e r e d t h e r a p y ; B . F. S k i n n e r a n d H a n s

Eysenck, world renowned psychologists, are other examples. Other

scientists clearly knew whence the funding derived and, indeed,
were in direct communication with CIA agents or became regular
consultants. A few of them served as pipelines of information

for the CIA. They kept the CIA posted on what was happening in
the laboratories, journals, and scientific meetings that might be
of potential interest. A sort of science spy network, as it were
— a l l v e r y, v e r y s e c r e t , a s " n a t i o n a l s e c u r i t y " w a s p r e s u m a b l y
at

stake

as

well

as

the

reputation

of

the

CIA-associated

s c i e n t i s t s .

am getting

B u t I / a h e a d o f m y s t o r y . I o u g h t fi r s t t o i n d i c a t e m y

o w n i n t e r e s t a n d r o l e i n t h i s s o r d i d b u s i n e s s . I s h a l l b r i e fl y
d e s c r i b e h o w I fi t i n , w h i l e m o v i n g t h e m o r e r e l e v a n t s t o r y
along.

I

was

a

graduate

student

in

psychology

at

McGill

University (Montreal, Canada) in 1952, when I was solicited to

serve as a subject in an experiment which was to pay $l/hr and
3 6 9

 which required that I set aside several days. In need of money
and with a virtuous impulse to help a fellow graduate student
complete his dissertation research, i agreed. The experiment, as
I learned several years later, was the first of many —
generically known as sensorv deprivai-ion. j was isolated in a
small sound-proofed room and requested to lie as motionless as

possible, in a supine position, wearing translucent goggles. No
activity, no sensory stimulation except for an occasional test
procedure over an intercom system to evaluate my mental

functions. This went on, in my case, for 24 hours. As I recall,
it was a rather boring experience, broken by sleep and stretches
of fantasy-filled reveries, but not an especially dramatic,
stressful, or debilitating one. Though I had given my "informed
consent," I was not given much in the way of a satisfactory
" d e b r i e fi n g . " I w a s o n l y g i v e n a r a t h e r g e n e r a l r a t i o n a l e f o r

the study — certain hypotheses concerning the relationship of
the sensory system and cortical functioning were being tested —
but certainly not told the whole truth, which as I was to learn

later, was the exploration of so-called brainwashing techniques.
The study was in fact a piece of contract work for the Canadian

Department of Defense and was highly classified.^
In 1954, still a graduate student but now in New York, I was
employed as a research psychologist at Cornell Medical Center-New

Yo r k H o s p i t a l , w i t h i n a u n i t n a m e d t h e " H u m a n E c o l o g y P r o g r a m , "
nominally housed in the neurology department and headed by a most
e m i n e n t p r o f e s s o r o f n e u r o l o g y. D r. H a r o l d G . W o l f f , k n o w n f o r
his pioneering work on headaches, pain, and psychosomatic
d i s o r d e r s . ( D r. Wo l ff h a d s e r v e d a s e d i t o r - i n - c h i e f o f t h e A M A ' s

Archives Sf Nehrojogy and Psvchiatrv and, in 1960, became
3 7 0

 president of the American Neurological Association.) My

assignment was to participate in an interdisciplinary project
studying the adaptation of 100 Chinese men and women to life in
America. They represented a group of Chinese who had come to the

USA on a temporary basis to pursue postgraduate work in a variety
of fields. In consequence of the Communist take-over, our
government decided to block the return of these men and women,
most of whom were thus stranded in the USA without their families
and faced with an uncertain future. i and the rest of the staff
were investigating this "experiment in nature" — the stress of
geographic dislocation and its adaptational consequences — in
order to determine the "ecological aspects of disease," in Dr.
Wolff's original phrasing. My role on the interdisciplinary team
was to assess the Chinese by a fairly standard battery of
personality and intelligence tests. The anthropologist and the

sociologist interviewed them about cultural and kinship issues,
while a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst plied their special
types of probing questions. In return for their participation in
our project, the Chinese received a complete physical — free of
charge — something they very much appreciated. They were also
motivated intrinsically by a desire to tell us about China and

Chinese culture, if not about their own interrupted lives.
Little did I know then that my work with the Chinese had

been designed by others for an entirely different end. Only in
1 9 7 7 , m o r e t h a n t w e n t y y e a r s l a t e r, u p o n r e c e i v i n g a c a l l f r o m a n

investigative reporter who wished to interview me about my
involvement with the Human Ecology Program, did I learn the
truth. To my shocked surprise, I found out that the program I
had been a part of had been totally financed by the CIA. The
3 7 1

 real aim of the Chinese project — and the reason for its
generous funding, i now learned — was to ferret out potential

agents for future assignments in China. (Incidentally, the
Chinese project was duly replicated, using Hungarian Freedom
Fighters of 1956, this time with the surreptitious aim of
studying the characteristics of "defectors.")

Subsequently it was revealed that only Dr. Wolff, and

perhaps one or two of his staff and others high up in the
university and hospital administration, knew of the behind-thescenes role of the CIA. It seems that Dr. Wolff was a personal
friend of Allan Dulles, then the ciA Director. The lure of
continuous, large-scale funding, which could be diverted to a
variety of other and more traditional research projects under Dr.

Wolff's direction, must have been very attractive to this totally
science-absorbed, emotionally detached, and ascetic workaholic.
Of course, patriotic sentiment undoubtedly played a significant
role given the temper of the times. m 1955, in response to
Wolff's enthusiastic and grand vision of the "synergistic
partnership between science and the CIA," the Agency enlarged
the CIA-funded study program into a research foundation (the
money presumably coming from rich private donors and former

patients, but actually from the CIA) which became known as the
"Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology," with Wolff as

president. Through this CIA-controlled funding mechanism, Wolff
extended his and his staff's efforts on behalf of the Agency,
efforts which now went far beyond Cornell. Wolff was expansive
in his scientific dream, to say the least. For instance, he
wrote the CIA that once he had figured out "how the human mind
really worked," he would tell the Agency "how a man can be made
3 7 2

 to think, feel and behave according to the wishes of other men,
and conversely, how a man can avoid being influenced in this
manner."®

In retrospect, there were several peculiar events during my
two years with the Human Ecology Program that ought to have
aroused my suspicion that things were not what they seemed. The

first was an intense interest Dr. Wolff showed in my experience
as a subject at McGill, something I had only casually mentioned
once. He wanted every detail, and eventually he urged me to

duplicate the experimental set-up at the hospital, using the more
drastic stimulus reduction technique provided by water immersion.
T h i s w a s a t e c h n i q u e d e v e l o p e d b y J o h n L i l l y, w h o s e f r o n t i e r
brain research at NIH was of intense CIA interest, but who
apparently had refused their approaches because he found secrecy
i n i m i c a l t o t h e s c i e n t i fi c p r o c e s s . L i t t l e d i d I k n o w t h a t D r .
Wolff's desire to grill me about my sensory deprivation

experience was triggered by his preoccupation with brainwashing
techniques, of interest to the CIA, for whom he was preparing a
comprehensive report.®
It was the notion of "brainwashing" that, in Marks' phrase,
helped Americans "pull together a lot of unsettling evidence into
one sharp fear" and served as the starting point for the CIA's

involvement with the behavioral sciences.' In the early 1950s,
r u m o r s w e r e fl y i n g a b o u t v a r i o u s e x o t i c , m y s t e r i o u s t e c h n i q u e s
(dubbed "brainwashing" in a 1950 Miami News article planted by
E d w a r d H u n t e r, a C I A a g e n t w i t h a j o u r n a l i s t c o v e r ) s u p p o s e d l y
practiced by the Russians, the Chinese, and the Koreans to
extract confessions for public show trials. Just conjure up the
picture of the bizarre public confession of Cardinal Mindszenty
3 7 3

 in 1949, who appeared zombie-like, as if drugged. The USA was in

the midst of cold-war hysteria and propaganda battles were being
fought around the globe. Anti-communism was at its highest
pitch, and so was McCarthy ism. No wonder the CIA was on the

alert, trying to assess what was happening. They were trying to
determine exactly how the Russians, Chinese, and Koreans

interrogated their prisoners, how they extracted confessions.
Were they using drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, subliminal
or extrasensory communication, stress techniques of some sort?

If so, "our side" had to know for defensive and, ultimately, for
offensive purposes.

This laid the seed for the CIA's Mind Control program which,
for Richard Helms, was actually a continuation of his earlier OSS

work during WW2, in which drugs such as marijuana, and
psychological ploys, had also played a role. In fact, several of
the initial staff recruited for this CIA unit were former OSS
staff members experienced in the derring-do of clandestine work

and its science-fiction-like, imaginative, and sometimes lurid
escapades. The CIA's Mind Control program, known at various

points in the 1950s and 1960s by the cryptonyms BLUEBIRD,
ARTICHOKE, MIDNIGHT CLIMAX, MK-ULTRA, MK-DELTA, among several
others, eventually funded 185 non-government scientists at 86
institutions, some of the most prestigious universities and
hospitals in the USA, at about $25 million. its arena of

interest, which began with the search for a truth drug or
hypnotic method as an aid in interrogating enemy agents,
broadened by leaps and bounds once "brainwashing" had become a
focal concern. In a 1953 document, for example. Dr. Gottlieb

listed subjects he expected one contracting scientist to
3 7 4

 investigate with the $85,000 the Agency was paying him. Dr.

Gottlieb wanted "...operationally pertinent materials along the
following lines:

a. Dis'turbance of memory
b. Discrediting by aberrant behavior
c. Alteration of sex patterns
d. Eliciting of information
e. Suggestibility

f. Creation of dependence."
A tall order, to say the least.

A second potential clue that the Human Ecology Program was

involved in some extraneous business was a meeting I attended in
1955, along with some 30 psychologists and psychiatrists, most of
them quite prominent in their field. They were all recipients of
some past or current grant money from the Society For Human

Ecology for their research. The meeting was called to order by
one of the administrators of the society (a psychologist and
retired major-general), who alerted us to the confidential nature
of the topics to be discussed and said that we were free to leave

at any time if the matter held no interest for us. in my own
case, I left fairly early upon hearing the gist of the task at
hand: we were asked to help prepare a manual on the

interpretation of non-verbal behavior (signs, cues, gestures,
etc.) for use by CIA agents in debriefing American visitors to
the USSR (who might have met various high-ranking officials about

whom valuable intelligence regarding health/illness status,
personality, and attitudes could be generated indirectly). I
left because I had no stomach for the preoccupation with the

East-West conflict nor for clandestine work. But I also thought
3 7 5

 it was a foolish and unrealistic undertaking: what could we as
psychologists validly and usefully deduce about another person by
second-hand reports of external behavior? Better ask Gypsy palm
readers, hypnotists, car salesmen, or their ilk — they are, I
suspect, far better commonsense psychologists, superior
"menschenkenner," than the professionals in the behavioral
science

fi e l d .

When in 1977 the

carried a series of headline

stories exposing details of the CIA's secret Mind Control
program, i was not at all surprised to read that the CIA had,

indeed, pumped headwaiters, fortune-tellers, prostitutes,
hustlers, con artists, psychics, hypnotists, and others for their

collective wisdom on how to assess and manipulate people. A
magician apparently was also on the CIA payroll for the purpose
of teaching agents how to slip LSD surreptitiously into someone's
drink at a party.®

Administering LSD without informed consent was among the
worst offenses perpetrated by the CIA-connected scientists —

psychiatrists and psychologists among them. The CIA's technical

staff (that is, those scientists who worked for the CIA)
certainly knew enough from the published LSD research to know

that the variables of experimental set and setting play a major
role in mediating the effects. They knew it was possible to

predict the general effects of a certain dosage level for a given
type of person under given laboratory conditions, but what about

natural, field conditions? This had never been systematically

investigated because it was clearly not feasible to study this
question under prevailing standards of professional ethics.

Nevertheless, the CIA scientists went ahead. They felt it was a

 sufficiently important question in light of national security
considerations. According to some accounts, as many as 50
pecple, including CIA agents themselves, several foreign agents,
soldiers, and people deliberately picked up in bars and brought
to a "safe house" by prostitutes, were given LSD or other

hallucinogenic drugs without their knowledge, serving as
unwitting CIA guinea pigs.9 Though the records of these
surreptitious experiments were ordered destroyed by Richard Helms
in 1973 ~ on the eve of the first senate investigation ~ we do
know that there were at least two suicides as a direct result of

the mind-distorting drug experience. A lawsuit by the family in
connection with one of them is still pending as are at least four
Other lawsuits by former soldiers.^0

One particularly gruesome experimental run was conducted by

the research director at the Federal Drug Facility in Lexington,
Kentucky, Dr. Harris Isbell. Here inmates were rewarded with
either the drug of their choice — usually cocaine or heroin —
or early release if they volunteered. He personally administered

LSD in increasing dosages to seven men for some 70 days to test
tolerance levels! He has never permitted any interviews.

Incidentally, the pivotal figure in the CIA, Dr. Gottlieb, not
only has refused any interviews, but, after the initial press
attention and his resignation in 1973, he fled, living abroad for

several years. He eventually returned in 1977 to testify in
closed chamber before the Senates Subcommittee on Health and

Scientific Research, having been granted immunity from criminal

prosecution.12 According to his colleagues, Gottlieb is a
"tinkerer...he likes to fiddle with things he has never made a
decision on his own...not a guy who would make waves with
3 7 7

 authority....he has a singular talent, such needed within the
CIA, the ability to take a complicated scientific problem and
explain it in terms that his non-scientific superiors could
understand."" it was obviously this talent that his patron,
Richard Helms, a non-scientist, valued. One might also infer
that it was Richard Helms, the boss, who gave the orders and
Gottlieb, the tinkerer, who carried them out. As a tinkerer, in
the tradition of the technician, he focused more on means than on
ends. This same quality of "tinkering" was true also of the
CIA's chief psychologist, with whom I became personally familiar
when he worked under cover on the Chinese project at Cornell.
What were the after-effects, if any, in the more than looo

college students, prisoners, mental patients, and army personnel

who were subjected to LSD or similar drugs under a variety of
conditions, with varying degrees of informed consent or
explanation of potential risk factors? We simply do not know.
The army, which along with other military services conducted its

own as well as CIA-inspired research on LSD, was instructed by
congress to do a follow-up. 1" The results have, to my knowledge,
not become public yet.

Much of the published work on such topics as LSD or sensory
deprivation was carried out under quite legitimate auspices,
governmental and otherwise. Not everything in these areas of

research was tainted by CIA moneys. m my own case, soon after

leaving Cornell's Human Ecology Program I conducted a series of
8-hour sensory deprivation studies at NYU's Research Center for

Mental Health that I believe were quite benign. The subjects
were carefully pre-screened volunteers, college students, air

force pilots, and unemployed actors, who were, of course, told

 they could terminate the experiment at any point if they so
wished and that they would receive a full account of the purpose
of the experiment and its results. Our research was of purely
theoretical interest to us, exploring individual differences in
response to perceptual and social isolation within a

psychoanalytic perspective. The US Air Force, which funded some

of the research, saw in it a useful space-flight analogue and
used our findings as part of their over-all effort in selecting
the initial batch of astronauts for the Mercury space program.15
Under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, we
also did some basic work on individual differences in LSD effects
as a function of personality predispositions. Again, we followed

strict ethical guidelines, obtained informed consent, explained
the risks, and had the necessary medical remedies (i.e.,
Thorazine) in the event a subject wanted to terminate the LSD

effects quickly. Also, I should make it clear that we used a
minimal dose — lOO micrograms. Like other researchers we were

intrigued by the notion of a model, reversible psychosis, and
thought we might learn something about the structure of abnormal
thought processes.15

In considering the total body of classified research

conducted by or for the CIA that had as its overriding aim the
control and manipulation of behavior, two questions suggest
themselves: what motivated the scientists to work covertly on
questionable projects; and what, in the end, was the yield in
knowledge of these studies?

To do full justice to the first question would, of course,
require fairly intimate familiarity with the personalities of
these scientists, and their motivational underpinnings, conscious
3 7 9

 as well as unconscious. A difficult task at best, especially as
most Of them have refused even an interview. only one, to my
knowledge, has acknowledged (in a legal deposition 26 years
later) that what he had done in his capacity as a CIA
psychologist "was a foolish mistake. We shouldn't have done
It...I'm sorry we did it because it turned out to be a terrible

mistake."17 were they men bent on evil? Decidedly no, in my
view. Though we have no calculus of evil, my contention is that
they were apt deliberately out to cause harm or destruction, nor
did they seem especially sadistic according to the available
evidence. They certainly cannot readily be compared with those
who participated in the unparalleled cruelty of the concentration
camp experiments. They did not view their subjects as subhuman,
as intrinsically inferior, or as persons whose lives were
"unworthy of life." When things went wrong, in the case of the
first suicide in 1953, it was clearly an accident and was viewed

as such. They lied, they deceived, they caused psychological
harm, they violated basic interpersonal trust and affronted human

dignity, but commit deliberate murder or other unspeakable
physical injury — no.

Some were earnest, boy-scout-like patriots who consented to

do something they knew was unethical because they were persuaded
it would further national security. or they were in it for the
perverse thrill or excitement that, for some people, goes

hand-in-hand with covert activity. Others, such as Dr. Wolff,
Dr. Cameron, and Dr. Isbell were caught up in the world of

scientific abstraction and professional career goals, having lost
touch with day-to-day human encounters and emotions. For many
scientists, including those in the behavioral fields, a process
3 8 0

 of "dehumanization" becomes almost inevitable: subjects become
data points, adding to the sample size: detachment and perhaps
even arrogance holds sway, certainly a lack of emphatic
s e n s i t i v i t y.

Parenthetically, I might note that recently the normative

paradigm of scientific inquiry, positivism, has come up for an

increasing critical attack, especially by feminist philosophers

of science, for example Sandra Harding, Genevieve Lloyd, and
Evelyn Fox Keller. They argue that positivism, in its emphasis
on control, manipulation, dispassionate objectivity, and
decontextual analysis, promotes an illusion of distance or
separation between the knower and the known. A process of
dehumanization, in this view, is a by-product of strict adherence
to dispassionate scientific method.^®

The CIA-backed scientists undoubtedly were aware of the

Nuremberg Code of 1947, which stipulates that medical research
should be intended to improve the lot of mankind and should be
conducted only on persons who consented after being informed of

the nature and risks of the experiment. Although this code was

adopted by the USA in 1953, the finer points of that code was yet
to be fully disseminated and debated in governmental, academic,
and research circles, and had in any case not filtered down from
the purely medical realm to the socio-behavioral. Unlike the
situation at the present time, characterized by strict federal

and institutional regulations and in-house ethics boards, in
g e n e r a l t h e r e w e r e i n s u f fi c i e n t f o r m a l c o n t r o l s a n d
consciousness-raising among scientists about ethical issues in

all their manifold and complex ramifications. The basic issue

requiring constant attention from all of us is, of course, the

 a g e - o l d q u e s t i o n : w h e n m a y a s o c i e t y, a c t i v e l y o r b y
acquiescence, expose some of its members to harm in order to seek

benefits for them, for others, or for society as a whole?^®
As for the second question I posed above: What, indeed, was
learned from these experiments? Was the yield worth the cost?

According to the CIA's own verdict, very little, if anything, was
learned that was of operational value. Whether marijuana, sodium
pentathol, LSD, mescaline, alcohol, sensory deprivation,
hypnosis, or stress — singly or in combination — the behavioral

fi n d i n g s w e r e f o u n d u n s t a b l e , u n r e l i a b l e , a n d u n p r e d i c t a b l e i n

t h e i r s p e c i fi c m a n i f e s t a t i o n . I n a w a y t h i s i s , a s M a r k s p o i n t s
out,

the

saving

grace

of

the

behavioral

scientist.

In

this

c o n n e c t i o n , M a r k s c i t e s a n a p t p i e c e o f i r o n y, v o i c e d b y D r.
Martin Orne, a long-time CIA consultant and a psychiatrist
specializing

in

hypnoses

research;

"We

are

s u f fi c i e n t l y

i n e f f e c t i v e s o t h a t o u r fi n d i n g s c a n b e p u b l i s h e d . "
In

my

view,

behavioral

scientists

fail

miserably

as

Svengalians and should forever ban power (prediction and control)
as their underlying philosophy of science goal. The goal of
u n d e r s t a n d i n g o u g h t t o s u f fi c e , e v e n i f i t d o e s n o t c a r r y w i t h i t
the

prestige

increasing

of

the

recognition

natural
of

the

sciences.

bankrupt

There

status

of

is

large

today

an

segments

of psychological and behavioral research, especially research
conceptualized and conducted in the positivist tradition. It is
clearly a tradition that has fostered a view of human subjects in
experiments as external objects towards whom something is done;
the subject is placed in a vulnerable and disempowered position,
rather than as a partner in the joint pursuit of knowledge, in a
truly transactional, essentially social process. If the debacle
3 8 2

 of the CIA-inspired research has led to the recognition of these
and other philosophically-based issues, it will have served some
value.20
When the American public was informed of the CIA's
b e h a v i o r a l s c i e n c e p r o g r a m , fi r s t b y t h e m e d i a t h r o u g h p e r s i s t e n t
and courageous investigative reporting, then by various senate

committee hearings, a loud outcry of outrage ensued, a sign that
Americans have a healthy revulsion against being pushed around
and controlled, especially by sneaks. Heads rolled at the CIA.
H e l m s w a s fi r e d . G o t t l i e b r e s i g n e d a n d d i s a p p e a r e d . W h o l e s a l e

shredding of documents and attempts at cover-ups took place, with
the

names

of

the

undercover

scientists

among

the

fi r s t

to

disappear — they had been promised anonymity! God only knows
what was in those documents in addition to the revelation found

in the 16,000 (albeit heavily censored) pages released under the
Freedom

of

Information

Act

to

investigative

reporters.

I

experienced my own special outrage because I had unwittingly
worked for them (on the Chinese project). My informed consent
had not even been requested. An ironic twist for a psychologist,
i n d e e d .
N e w

Among the many colorful headlines and editorials in the/York
Times that neatly summed up the American feeling was the one that

simply stated: "Control the CIA, Not Behavior."21 one can only
hope that the centralized administration that was instituted
subsequently within the CIA, and the tightening of Congress's
monitoring function of covert activities, as well as tighter
rules adopted by many universities and research centers vis-a-vis
c l a s s i fi e d r e s e a r c h a n d h u m a n e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n i n g e n e r a l , w i l l

prevent any repetition of this sort of glaring infraction of
3 8 3

 human rights.

F i n a l l y, i t i s m y f e r v e n t h o p e t h a t r e s e a r c h e r s , w h e t h e r i n
the natural or behavioral sciences, no longer concern themselves

solely with the advancing their science. In their single-minded
preoccupation with science, pure or applied, they tend to deny
o r, a t l e a s t , u n d e r e s t i m a t e t h e p l a c e o f e n d s , g o a l s , a n d v a l u e s
in their relationship to science. In this regard, I can only

echo a point made by Carl Rogers in 1956 in his debate with
S k i n n e r o n " t h e c o n t r o l o f h u m a n b e h a v i o r, " w h e n h e w a r n e d t h a t

without careful scrutiny of the ends, goals, and values that lie
o u t s i d e o u r p a r t i c u l a r s c i e n t i fi c e n d e a v o r s , w e a r e a l l m u c h m o r e
l i k e l y t o s e r v e w h a t e v e r i n d i v i d u a l o r g r o u p h a s t h e p o w e r.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. The best single background source for the CIA's Mind

Control programs, its personnel and funding fronts is J. Marks,
T h e S e a r c h f o r t h e " M a n c h u r i a n C a n d i d a t e " ( N e w Yo r k : N e w Yo r k

Times Books, 1979). Except where I rely on my own knowledge or
cite other sources, I have relied heavily on Marks' carefully
d o c u m e n t e d b o o k i n p r e p a r i n g t h e p r e s e n t p a p e r. J o h n M a r k s ,

whose investigative work played a singular role in exposing the
s t o r y, w a s a f fi l i a t e d w i t h t h e W a s h i n g t o n - b a s e d C e n t e r f o r
National Security Studies, funded by the Civil Liberties Union
and which served as a watchdog group of the actions of American

secret agencies. For a detailed close-up of Dr. Ewen Cameron,

the man, his research, and a chilling portrait of the misuse of
medical power and its victims, see Anne Collins, In t^e Sj^ep
/-i-F

-t-ho

r-Ti

n-rai

nvipiethi

na

Fxneriments

in

Canada

(Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1988). See also A. Weinstein, h
Father, a Son and the CIA (Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1988).
2 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 0 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 7 .

3 . T. S z u l c , " T h e C I A ' s E l e c t r i c K o o l - A i d A c i d Te s t , "
Psycholoav Todav. November, 1977, p.94.
4. Collins, op. cit. pp.248-249.
3 8 4

 5 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 A u g u s t 1 9 7 7 ; S e e a l s o M a r k s , Q P t g i t .

6. H.G. Wolff, & L. Hinkle, "Communist Interrogation and
Indoctrination of *Enemies of the State'," Archives of Neurology

a n d P s y c h i a t r y 7 6 : 11 5 - 7 4 , 1 9 5 6 . T h i s i s t h e p u b l i s h e d v e r s i o n o f
the

report.
7. New YQtk Times, 2 August 1977.

8 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 , 4 , 5 , 7 , 9 , 1 4 , 2 5 , 2 7 A u g u s t ; 3 , 7 ,
21 September; 7, 9, 19, September 1977.
9 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 0 & 2 1 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 7 .
1 0 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 7 A u g u s t ; 7 O c t o b e r 1 9 7 7 .
11 . N e w Y Q t k Ti m e s , 11 A u g u s t 1 9 7 7 .
1 2 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s 7 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 7 .
1 3 . N e w Yo r k T i m e s . 2 0 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 7 .
14.

New

Yo r k

Times.

19

October

1977.

1 5 . L . G o l d b e r g e r, " E x p e r i m e n t a l i s o l a t i o n : A n o v e r v i e w, "
American Journal of Psychiatry 122: 774-782, 1966.

16. H. L. Barr, R.J. Langs, L. Goldberger, R.R. Holt, &

G . S . K l e i n , L S D ; P e r s o n a l i t y a n d E x p e r i e n c e ( N e w Yo r k : W i l e y
Interscience, 1972). Our book gives a full account of the
r e s e a r c h p r o t o c o l , n o t h i n g c l a s s i fi e d a n d n o t h i n g w i t h h e l d ,

unlike the publications that came out of the CIA-tainted
r e s e a r c h .

1 7 . J a c k A n d e r s o n a n d D a l e Va n A t t a . Wa s h i n g t o n P o s t . 2 7
October

1985.

18. S. Harding and M. Hintikka, (eds.) Discovering Reality:
F e m i n i s t P e r s p e c t i v e o n E o i s t e m o l o g v . M e t a p h y s i c s , M e t h o d Q l o q Y,
and the Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht. Holland: D. Reidel,

1983); G. Lloyd, The Man of Reason: "M^le" an4 in
Western Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

1 9 8 4 ) ; E . F. K e l l e r, R e fl e c t i o n s o n G e n d e r a n d S c i e n c e ( N e w
H a v e n , C o n n e c t i c u t : Ya l e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1 9 8 5 ) .
1 9 . J . K a t z , E x p e r i m e n t a t i o n w i t h H u m a n B e i n g s ( N e w Yo r k :
Russel Sage Foundation, 1972).

20. J.G. Morawski, The Rise of Experimentation in American
Psychology (New Haven, Connecticut; Yale University Press, 1988).
2 1 . N e w Yo r k Ti m e s . E d i t o r i a l , 5 A u g u s t 1 9 7 7 .

22. C. Rogers, and B.F. Skinner, "Some issues concerning
the control of human behavior: a symposium, " Science 124: 10571066, 1956.

3 8 5

 Medical Science without: Compassion

I n t r o d u c t i o n
Benno

Miiller-Hill

The Hi-tnesses
Rudolf

Personal

Vrba

Memories

of

Activities

of

SS

Physicians in Auschwitz and Birkenau
Hermann Langbein

Experiments on Human Beings in Nazi
Concentration Camps: Observations and
R e fl e c t i o n s

of

a

Witness

Nazi Germany
Michael

Kater

The Crisis of Physicians and Medicine
in Nazi Germany

Henry Friedlander

From Euthanasia to the Final Solution

The Empire of Japem
Sheldon

H.

Harris

J a p a n e s e B i o l o g i c a l Wa r f a r e E x p e r i
ments and Other Atrocities in Manchu

ria, 1932-1945, and the Subsequent
United States Cover-Up
Charles

G.

Roland

P e r c e p t i o n ' s O n e - Wa y M i r r o r : A l l i e d
POWs, Japanese Captors, and the
Geneva Convention

Perpetrators £md Company
Peter

Chroust

The Letters of Friedrich Mennecke:
Documents of a Medical Killer

Dan

Bar-On

The

Paradox

of

the

Morality

of

an

Auschwitz Physician and his Son: Is
Medicine

now

more

vulnerable

immune to Genocide?

1

or

more

 LIST

OF

SPEAKERS

Dr. Dan Bar On, Behavioral Sciences, Ben Gurion-University of the
Negev, Beer Sheva 84 105, P.O.Box 653, ISRAEL

Dr. Peter R. Breggin, Centre for the Study of Psychiatry, Inc.,
4628 Chestnut Street, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A.

D r. P e t e r C h r o u s t , Z e n t r u m f Q r h i s t o r i s c h e S o z i a l f o r s c h u n g ,
B a c h e i n e r S t r. 4 0 , 5 0 0 0 K o l n 4 1 , F R 6

P r o f e s s o r H e n r y F r i e d l a n d e r, D e p a r t m e n t o f J u d a i c S t u d i e s ,
Brooklyn College, Home: Chevy Chase, MD 20815, U.S.A.
P r o f e s s o r L e o G o l d b e r g e r, F a c u l t y o f A r t s a n d S c i e n c e , D e p a r t m e n t
of Psychology, New York, N.Y. 10003, U.S.A.

P r o f e s s o r S h e l d o n H . H a r r i s , D e p a r t m e n t o f H i s t o r y, C a l i f o r n i a
S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y, N o r t h r i d g e , N o r t h r i d g e , C a l i f o r n i a 9 1 3 3 0 ,
U . S . A .

Professor Michael Kater, York University, Department of History,
Atkinson College, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario M3J 2R7,
C

A

N

A

D

A

Professor George Klein, Institution fdr Tumdrbiologi, Karolinska
Institutet, Box 60400, 104 01 Stockholm, SWEDEN

Hermann Langbein, Weigandhof 5, A - 1100 Wien, AUSTRIA

Dr. Georg Lilienthal, Medizinhistorischens Institut, Johannes
Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Am Pulverturm 13, 6500 Mainz, F R G
Dr. Jeffrey M. Masson, 1400 Delaware Street, Berkeley, California
94702,

U.S.A.

P r o f e s s o r C h a r l e s G . R o l a n d , M c M a s t e r U n i v e r s i t y, F a c u l t y o f

Health Sciences, History of Medicine, Room 3N10 - HSC, 1200 Main
Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8N 3Z5, CANADA
5 1 3