THE SUBJECTS / COUNTERCULTURE
How the CIA’s drug got to the counterculture.
RECORD / AT A GLANCE
PARTLY TRUE
Kesey and Hunter were paid test subjects in drug trials in California. Whether those trials were CIA-funded is disputed. That the CIA meant to spread LSD is unproven.
THE EVENTS / THE CLAIM / THE RECORD
1959
Kesey takes LSD as a paid subject at the Menlo Park veterans’ hospital.
Early 1960s
Robert Hunter is paid $140 to take LSD, psilocybin and mescaline.
1965 – 1966
Kesey’s parties, with the Grateful Dead, help bring LSD to the counterculture.
READ THE FILE
The CIA turned on the 1960s.
Paid volunteers, a disputed funding link.
Open an article for its evidence, labeled AI assessment and numbered sources. Read the complete static edition ↗
WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THIS FILE
3 claims people make about this file, each rated documented, partly true, disputed, unproven or false. Think a rating is wrong? Use Dispute or Support, or join the Discussion.
He volunteered at the Menlo Park VA hospital.
Who says it: Interviews and histories.
He said he was paid $140.
Who says it: Hunter, NPR.
Kesey and Hunter were in funded studies, but no record shows the CIA built a movement.
Who says it: Online posts.
OPEN THE RECORD
Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.
Radio segment on Kesey’s paid drug trials at the Menlo Park veterans hospital, with archival audio of a session.
Hunter describes being paid $140 to take LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in a Stanford study in the early 1960s.
173-page official scan. Prepared statements, questions and answers are distinguished; Appendix A reprints the relevant Church Committee investigation. Printed page numbers differ from PDF page indices.
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The CIA turned on the 1960s.
The two men who did most to bring LSD to the counterculture both got it first from government research. Kesey was a guinea pig at the Menlo Park veterans’ hospital; Hunter was paid by a Stanford study. [1][2] Some go further: that the agency wanted LSD on the streets, to study it or to defuse the antiwar movement.
Radio segment on Kesey’s paid drug trials at the Menlo Park veterans hospital, with archival audio of a session.
Hunter describes being paid $140 to take LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in a Stanford study in the early 1960s.
Paid volunteers, a disputed funding link.
On the Media’s 2018 account says the Menlo Park trials were “marketed as research for treating mental illness, but we know today that they were part of Project MK Ultra”. Kesey was given several drugs, including LSD, in 1959 or 1960. [1]
Robert Hunter told Fresh Air in 1988: “They paid me $140 to take – first, LSD, second, psilocybin, I think, third, mescaline.” He did not know the project was funded by the CIA. [2]
The surviving MKULTRA records list 44 colleges and universities and 12 hospitals, but researchers’ names are largely withheld. [3] This file found no released subproject record naming the Menlo Park trials. Journalists say they were MKULTRA-linked; that remains disputed.
Radio segment on Kesey’s paid drug trials at the Menlo Park veterans hospital, with archival audio of a session.
Hunter describes being paid $140 to take LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in a Stanford study in the early 1960s.
173-page official scan. Prepared statements, questions and answers are distinguished; Appendix A reprints the relevant Church Committee investigation. Printed page numbers differ from PDF page indices.
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