"OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX":CIA games

 "OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX"; CIA GAMES

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INTRODUCCTION/OVERVIEW

Operation Midnight Climax was an operation carried out by the CIA 

as a sub-project of Project MKUltra, the mind-control research 

program that began in the 1950s. It was initially established in 

1954 by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction of the

 Federal Bureau of Narcotics in Boston, Massachusetts with the

 "Federal Narcotics Agent and CIA consultant" George Hunter White

 under the pseudonym of Morgan Hall. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was a chemist

 who was chief of the Chemical Division of the Office of Technical Service of

 the CIA. Gottlieb based his plan for Project MKUltra and Operation 

Midnight Climax off of interrogation method research under Project

 Artichoke. Unlike Project Artichoke, Operation Midnight Climax gave 

Gottlieb permission to test drugs on unknowing citizens, which made way

 for the legacy of this operation. Hundreds of federal agents, field 

operatives, and scientists worked on these programs before they were shut

 down in the 1960s

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RESULTS OF OPERATION

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  Official results of these experiments were not released, but accounts from

 supervisors of the experiments give little insight to the findings. George

 Hunter White, an agent at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and Ira "Ike"

 Feldman, a former military intelligence officer, who oversaw San Francisco

 experiments, noticed that subjects spoke far more freely when under the

 influence of a combination of drugs and sex. "No one knows where they [human test subjects] are now, or what effects they may have suffered.

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BACKGROUND

HISTORY

Operation Midnight Climax started in 1954 and consisted of a web of CIA-

run safehouses in San Francisco at 225c Chestnut Street, San Francisco, 

CA, and Mill Valley, California, as well as New York City. The safehouses 

were dramatically scaled back in 1963, following a report by CIA Inspector

 General John Earman which strongly recommended closing the facility. The

 San Francisco safehouses were closed in 1965, and the New York City 

safehouse soon followed in 1966.Operation Midnight Climax and Project 

MKUltra were considered to be so secretive that few people, even in the

 highest government positions, knew Gottlieb existed, let alone was 

conducting these experiments. However, some senior officers in the CIA

 knew enough about him to connect his work to LSD.

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OJECTIVES/METHODOLOGY

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Operation Midnight Climax was established in order to study the effects of

 LSD on non-consenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were 

instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were 

surreptitiously plied with a wide range of substances, including LSD, and 

monitored behind one-way glass. The prostitutes were instructed in the use

 of post-coital questioning to investigate whether the victims could be

 convinced to involuntarily reveal secrets. The victims were sometimes fed

 subliminal messages in attempts to induce them to involuntary actions,

 including criminal activity such as robbery, assault, and assassination. 

Many of the CIA operatives involved in the experiments voluntarily 

indulged in the drugs and prostitutes for recreational 

purposes.Additionally, information from Wilmington News Journal on 

October 15, 1978, reports from a FOIA request that, "the spy agency 

purchased two pounds of Yohimbine hydrochloride... by Dr. Robert V. 

Lashbrook, the chief aide to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb." The role of Dr. Lashbrook

 was to, "monitor and approve materials for Operation Midnight Climax."

Senate investigators were told that the goals of these experiments were to

 study mind control and sexual behavior.More specifically, to learn about 

the secrets of brainwashing to gain control over enemy spies and protect 

U.S. agents. Other objectives included finding drugs that could incapacitate

 entire buildings via poisoned food, which would create "confusion-anxiety-

fear," and other symptoms such as headaches and earaches. These drugs

 could also have amnesia effects, which were intended for use on foreign 

spies following interrogations and retiring CIA agents.Another aspect they

 tested was the effect of combining LSD and isolation, where the subjects

 would be dosed and isolated for months at a time with minimal food and water.

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ETHICAL CONCERNS

In 1947, the CIA was prohibited on behalf of President Truman, due to 

fears of political abuse, from spying against American citizens, but these 

actions contradict the adherence to this prohibition.These acts were illegal

 and several significant operational techniques were developed in this 

theater, including extensive research into sexual blackmail, surveillance

 technology and the possible use of mind-altering drugs in field 

operations.Furthermore, the CIA operatives in charge of administering 

these experiments were told by superiors that the results of the 

experiments would be beneficial to the country. There is currently when a

 debate over how ethical George Hunter White's actions were, with some 

arguing that if his motive was to legally make people suffer, he was 

unethical, while others argue that if he believed that the experiments 

would benefit national security, his actions could be justified.The subjects 

of Gottlieb's experiments also included mentally disabled 

children.Operation Midnight Climax was soon expanded, and CIA operatives

 began dosing people in restaurants, bars, and beaches along with signing 

up to use the drugs themselves. The extent to which this widespread 

exposure of the public to mind-altering drugs contributed to the rise of the 

counter-culture movement in the late 1950s and 1960s is unknown, 

although Ken Kesey has attributed his role in the genesis of the influential 

San Francisco Bay Area psychedelic social scene that developed in the 

1960s to his participation in Project MKUltra LSD experiments at the Menlo

 Park, California, VA Hospital.

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