Man who outed MKULTRA dies
Calling all conspiracy investigators. All conspiracy theorists to the white courtesy phone please. From The Washington Post:
John K. Vance, 89, a member of the Central Intelligence Agency inspector general's staff in the early 1960s who discovered that the agency was running a research project that included administering LSD and other drugs to unwitting human subjects, died May 27 of respiratory arrest. He died at the Wilson Health Care Center of Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg. Code-named MKULTRA (and pronounced m-k-ultra), the project Mr. Vance uncovered was the brainchild of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was intrigued by reports of mind-control techniques allegedly conducted by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar techniques on its own POWs and perhaps use LSD or other mind-bending substances on foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro a few years after the project got underway in 1953. Heading MKULTRA was a CIA chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. In congressional testimony, Gottlieb, who died in 1999, acknowledged that the agency had administered LSD to as many as 40 unwitting subjects, including prison inmates and patrons of brothels set up and run by the agency. At least one participant died when he jumped out of a 10th-floor window in a hotel; others claimed to have suffered serious psychological damage. Mr. Vance learned about MKULTRA in the spring of 1963 during a wide-ranging inspector general survey of the agency's technical services division. The inspector general's report said: "The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and outside the agency to be distasteful and unethical." As a result of Mr. Vance's discovery and the inspector general's report, the CIA halted the testing and began scaling back the project. It was terminated in the late 1960s. MKULTRA came to public light in 1977 as a result of hearings conducted by a Senate committee on intelligence chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho). Mr. Vance gave several long phone interviews to committee staff members but never had to testify.Mr. Vance's death should be noted by all those interested in bringing light on the dark side of U.S. history.
2 Comments:
Hey Carnacki...I missed your sorta GBCW Got a Happy Story final diary and comment thread. I just read it and wanted to say thanks for all that you have contributed to Dkos, Booman Trib, the US and the World. I always enjoyed reading your diaries and posts. I also appreciated that you read some of my comments. There are maybe a handful of people over at Dkos that I really respected and admired..You are one of them. Your posts always had such humanity and gave me peace. Keep fighting the good fight. Stay well. I hope I am around when you return. MY best to Ms. Carnacki and the Adorable girls (the pix you posted of them supporting Kerry will always be in my memory) I hope have a productive and great time off and a Bitchin Summer. Dkos will not be the same without you around. It's kinda like saying goodbye to the scarecrow at the end of the Wizard of Oz. all my best, Chamonix
Thanks Chamonix. I always enjoyed your posts. I'll be back probably in October.
Post a Comment
<< Home