MKULTRA, a massive mind control project executed by America's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) through the 1950's and '60s is put under a microscope in John Lisle's book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA. His reflections about the project and reporting of accounts obtained from Congressional investigations into the project is stunning and troubling.
Lisle's dissection and study of the CIA's unconventional warfare activities of MKULTRA require readers to immerse their entire concentration into the collection of quotes and stories he organizes. Sometimes requiring the reader to re-read passages, even chapters to fully comprehend the full impact MKULTRA experiments had on its subjects and targets.
Lisle plunges the reader into the work of Mr. Sidney Gottlieb at the start of the book. He describes how Gottlieb was hired by the CIA to experiment with methods of mind control. Through Gottlieb's research into methods used by scientists in Russia, China, and even Canada, MKULTRA projects expanded into using psychological means, chemical means, technological means, and physical means. Sometimes causing the death or mental meltdown of the subject as well as the target.
The author explains that after World War II, governments in Germany, Russia, and China revealed how they had the ability to control their population through multiple means. It was a race that America, at the time, was ill-prepared to compete in or protect itself from being manipulated by ulterior forces. CIA's activities were meant to make America competitive in the mind control field. Instead, their activities imploded on America's population.
Following WWII, then US President Harry Truman signed the Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, which formed the CIA and granted the agency the authority to spend unaccountable/unvouchered funds and be freed from disclosing their operations into unconventional warfare to Congress or the President. Truman gave the CIA its powers, freeing the agency of being held accountable, especially to the Americans they harmed.
Hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, torture, and technological gadgets developed by the scientists contracted with the CIA were some of the experiments under MKULTRA. Some of the subprojects included Operation Midnight Climax, Operation Bluebird, Operation Artichoke, and Project Monarch.
Collectively, the tools used for experiments were dubbed Family Jewels, and Gottlieb had been named Dr. Death. Lisle digs up the sinister plots orchestrated by the various contractors of the CIA, each working within their individual compartment, so those in each compartment could honestly say they did not know what the other compartments were doing.
Secrecy and covert operations became the key traits of the CIA. Although, one key trait of MKULTRA became publicly known by the 1970's. That being LSD. Lisle devotes a large portion of his book to the LSD experiments, and the harm these experiments inflicted on the American population, especially causing the self-destructive hippy movement of the late 1960's.
There is alot of substance to unpack in Lisle's book. All worth the reader's time.
Visit: https://johnlislehistorian.com/