[ninesnines]

Yikes; I know there have been a couple of high profile psychological experiments that have gone wrong, e.g. Stanford prison experiment etc, but even with that context these CIA based studies on students seem like huge ethical red flags; even from a 1970s perspective. But I would like to point out that the eyeroll vilification of LSD just for fun in this article is not ideal; many drugs can induce an individual to be more suggestible and many drugs can hurt individuals that are already prone to schizophrenia and other psychotic breakdowns

[harshreality]

That's the safe view, that the studies caused mental pathologies in some subjects to bubble up to the surface, leading to their commission of notable violent crimes or susceptibility to political causes that turned violent.

I personally don't believe, since I haven't seen evidence of it, that the CIA ran those studies to create sleeper agents that they could command to do things for nefarious purposes. However, it's possible that's what it turned into once the principal experimenters realized they had a group of people they'd made highly suggestible. Parts of the CIA, at least up through the Reagan era, were extremely shady.

[MacsHeadroom]

> I personally don't believe, since I haven't seen evidence of it, that the CIA ran those studies to create sleeper agents that they could command to do things for nefarious purposes.

Well then you haven't looked.

"The primary goal of Project Artichoke was to determine whether a person could be involuntarily made to perform an act of attempted assassination. ... Project Artichoke was succeeded by Project MKUltra, which began in 1953. ... the scope of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that asked, "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?"" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Artichoke

The primary source documents for these programs are declassified and available on the CIA's official website.

[chrisco255]

Then what? They grew a conscience when Bush Sr became president? What was their "come to Jesus" moment that led to reform in how they conduct themselves?

[tyingq]

> Then what?

Improved record keeping and legal discoverability is my guess. So shady things moved to places where they could control it better. Like foreigners detained without due process.

[chrisco255]

Is that your guess? Can you name any high profile cases that were prosecuted as a result of enhanced discoverability?

[tyingq]

They wouldn't want to be avoiding only prosecution, but also whatever embarrassing details might come out. Iran-Contra, for example, was personally embarrassing for very high-level people. Lots of documents mentioning, quoting, signed by, etc, high level folks[1]. Abu Ghraib, on the other hand, was mostly pawned off on the lowest level people, as if it weren't sanctioned by the Executive Office and the CIA. Related embarrassing documents were mostly signed by lawyers without direct quotes from high-level leaders. Partially because the top-down instructions took a form that was much less discoverable/accountable.

[1] https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra...

[hutzlibu]

911 and the patriot act maybe?

More (unchecked) power always leads to more idealism /s

[harshreality]

From what I can tell, the reactions to Iran-Contra and the end of the Cold War put an end to some of the more, umm, creative approaches within the CIA.

[FrustratedMonky]

I think Iran-Contra put a damper for awhile, but not permanently. Like "they caught us, we have to be good for awhile".

[chrisco255]

Or "we have to be more careful next time not to get caught"?

[chrisco255]

How would you tell?

[mrangle]

> I personally don't believe, since I haven't seen evidence of it, that the CIA ran those studies to create sleeper agents that they could command to do things for nefarious purposes

You don't have to decide whether or not to believe. It's public information and not up for debate.

[csydas]

I think it's good to be skeptical, as there is indeed a lot of misinformation and speculation that has been more or less codified as fact regarding the CIA and other departments during these eras. I also don't think necessarily that they had the goal of making sleeper agents with the study.

However, I don't doubt that the CIA was interested in such an idea; the CIA was grossly overpowered, over confident, and overly ambitious during its formative decades. Reading about their own internal review of Bay of Pigs, it's pretty clear the CIA imagined themselves to have far more control over populations and manipulations than they really did.

So I think your sentence here:

>However, it's possible that's what it turned into once the principal experimenters realized they had a group of people they'd made highly suggestible.

Probably does have some ring of truth to it. I think it's supported by the idea that more or less this is what is done with the US military but with a much more controlled way now during the initial trainings. The numbers for actual landed shots in law enforcement and wars are pretty telling, since most persons even in direct line of danger still can't seem to land a shot on another human being intentionally. Having the ability to get past this blocker for killing probably was quite attractive to governments in general, and I carry an unsubstantiated belief that probably Ted Kaczynski becoming the Unabomber was an undesired effect, but a carefully studied one.

But to be clear, this thought lives in the same part of my mind as fantasies in the literal sense of the definition. (i.e., not desirable like we ascribe to the word commonly, just a thought in the realm of pure imagination)

[mrangle]

> I also don't think necessarily that they had the goal of making sleeper agents with the study.

Respectfully, what are you talking about? MKULTRA was the continuation of Project Artichoke, whose explicit goal was to create sleeper agents. And the sleeper agent was one admitted continued focus through decades of these programs.

People really have to read more about the deep history of this stuff before they comment with the intention of adding context.

[AnimalMuppet]

MK Ultra ended by 1973. Most of the mass shootings recently were done by people who were born after 1973. So either the shootings are caused by something else wrong in American society (for which there are lots of candidates), or the CIA quit MK-Ultra-the-program, but continued MK-Ultra-the-type-of-experiment.

This becomes a kind of Rorschach Test - people see different things, and what they see tells you more about them than it does about the available data.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Agreed. Drugs can mess you up. This is not new, but this is also a reason to approach them with reasonable care; not completely unlike alcohol or other vices. Dosage could change your perspective in unexpected ways and, as you said, individual psychological profile may make you more vulnerable to its effects. It is a hard subject.

[mrangle]

You have no idea.

LSD was introduced by the CIA into American culture. This is public information, not conjecture.

CIA programs like MKULTRA are either malevolent or LSD is fine. It can't be both. Choose one if you wish to be truthful with yourself.

MKULTRA that started in prior interrogation and Manchurian Candidate programs like Project Artichoke, and continued through efforts like the Phoenix Program in Southeast Asia and Project Condor.

Your guess is as good as mine what has transpired since.