CIA Director Admits Documents on Secret Drug Experiments Were Destroyed
CIA Director Stansfield Turner on this day publicly admitted to the existence of the MKULTRA program a secret program of experiements in mind control, usually without the informed consent of the subjects in experiments. Turner also confirmed the reports that documents from the program had previously been destroyed.
The MKULTRA program, which began on April 13, 1953, caused enormous controversy when it was finally exposed, in large part because some people were subjects of experiments without their consent. Some of the experiments involved giving subjects LSD.
In 1973, then-CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA files destroyed (although about 20,000 documents survived, because they were filed as financial documents).
At least 44 colleges and universities and 15 private foundations and pharmaceutical companies participated in the secret CIA drug experiments.
In addition to the CIA drug experiments, revelations of drug experiments conducted by respected scientists on subjects without informed consent led to major reforms on the ethical standards for scientific research on human subjects, including the Belmont Report on September 30, 1978.
Learn about the CIA’s “Poisoner in Chief,” who led the agency’s drug experiments here
Read the Church Committee report on MKULTRA (pp. 385-422): http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book1/html/ChurchB1_0215b.htm
And more about the CIA’s “appalling human experiments” here
Read more: Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse (1989)
Read the 1994 GAO report on Cold War human experimentation: http://www.gao.gov/assets/110/105708.pdf