Operation Midnight Climax

The US CIA and military is filled with a history of bad decisions, deceit, and in some cases what I would classify as pure evil. One such misguided and unethical program was an appendage of Project MKULTRA under the name of Operation Midnight Climax.

Before we go into detail we must first explore the nature of Project MKULTRA. MKULTRA was started in 1953 under the direction of CIA director Allen Dulles. The program was allowed to use up to 6% of the total CIA budget and required no budget oversight or reporting. The premise of MKULTRA was to explore the use of "mind-control" drugs after alleged uses of such drugs by Communist Leadership (Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans) on U.S. POWs. The drugs included the use of LSD, Heroin, and Sodium Pentothal (Truth Serum).

Dr. Sidney Gottlieb oversaw many experiments exploring the use of LSD on often times unknowing U.S. citizens. The experiments often took a sadistic turn. Gottlieb was known to torture victims by locking them in sensory deprivation chambers while dosed on LSD, or to make recordings of psychiatric patients' therapy sessions, and then play a tape loop of the patient's most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD. Gottlieb himself took LSD frequently, locking himself in his office and taking copious notes. continued →