ORIGINS / INTERROGATION
The interrogation projects before MKULTRA.
RECORD / AT A GLANCE
DOCUMENTED
The surviving memos record drug-and-hypnosis interrogations of real people, including attempts to induce amnesia. They do not show that any technique worked as hoped.
THE EVENTS / THE CLAIM / THE RECORD
5 April 1950
The program on special interrogation is set out.
August 1951
The project takes a new code name.
14 July 1952
An ARTICHOKE team reports questioning a subject under drugs and hypnosis.
READ THE FILE
The CIA wanted to erase memories and make people obey.
Real interrogations, real amnesia attempts, unclear results.
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Both are in surviving CIA records; ARTICHOKE studied drugs and hypnosis in interrogation.
Who says it: CIA documents.
OPEN THE RECORD
Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
The committee’s 1976 account of BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI, MKSEARCH, the Olson case, the 1973 destruction and the Army’s overseas LSD interrogations. Written before the 1977 discovery of the financial files.
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The CIA wanted to erase memories and make people obey.
Long before MKULTRA was a public word, people who claimed the government had experimented on their minds were dismissed as paranoid. The BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE records prove the agency wanted exactly the powers those people described: to make a person talk, to make them forget, and to see whether someone could be made to act against their will. [1][2][3]
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
The committee’s 1976 account of BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI, MKSEARCH, the Olson case, the 1973 destruction and the Army’s overseas LSD interrogations. Written before the 1977 discovery of the financial files.
Real interrogations, real amnesia attempts, unclear results.
The April 1950 BLUEBIRD memo lays out a program of special interrogation methods. [1] The July 1952 ARTICHOKE report describes a “narco-hypnotic” interrogation of a real subject. The team combined drugs with hypnosis, asked questions, and tried to leave the subject with no memory of the session. [2]
The Church Committee confirms that ARTICHOKE teams tested these methods on people overseas and that the work fed directly into MKULTRA. [3]
What the records do not show is a reliable technique. The reports describe partial results, confusion and subjects who said things, not a method for producing true answers or obedient agents on demand.
What we can’t tell you. Names of subjects are redacted. Most ARTICHOKE operational files have not been released.
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
Contemporary federal record. It documents the author’s statements and institutional actions; objectives and reported results must still be evaluated separately.
The committee’s 1976 account of BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA, MKDELTA, MKNAOMI, MKSEARCH, the Olson case, the 1973 destruction and the Army’s overseas LSD interrogations. Written before the 1977 discovery of the financial files.
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