Human Drug Testing by the CIA

by U.S. Senate Committee on Human Resources


Project MKULTRA was the code name for a CIA mind-control research program that began in 1950. The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign."

Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." At least one death, that of Dr. Frank Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers. This is the final volume of hearings on the CIA's program of human drug testing, which features as its centrepiece the testimony of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the MKULTRA project and several other related programs. →