Secrets Lies, the CIA and a Psychiatrist

A TRUE STORY OF SECRETS, LIES, THE CIA, A PSYCHIATRIST AND OTHERS

THE BOOK & THE PSYCHIATRIST

At the May meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, I was teaching a course on Psychiatric Aspects of Disaster & Terrorism. At one of the breaks a psychiatrist in the class came up to me and suggested that I might be interested in reading a book  titled Secrets & Lies by Gordon Thomas ( Octavo Press 2007 )  I did read the book and found it a fascinating story of how the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s had sponsored experiments – many on non-suspecting individuals, where they were given drugs or otherwise cruelly treated in attempts to control and manipulate their minds. To my amazement one of the main perpetrators of this behavior was a prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Ewen Cameron who had served as President of the American Psychiatric Association in 1952-53, subsequently President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and then President of the World Psychiatric Association in 1963. I am a proud member of the American Psychiatric Association and was the Speaker of the Assembly of this organization in 2007 when it passed an historic resolution of policy reinforcing it’s longstanding prohibition against psychiatrists participating in any form of torture but now making it unethical for a psychiatrist to participate in interrogation of prisoners or even in the training of people for the interrogations of prisoners. This is in such stark contrast to the story of Dr. Cameron’s earlier experiments more than ½ century ago and his “treatment” at that time of patients at the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal Canada where he was Chairman. Although his work was not related to the professional organizations to which he belonged, was controversial at the time and subsequently was discredited, I believe it deserves retelling. I will briefly review it in this blog and urge anyone interested to read the entire story in the well documented book by Gordon Thomas, an award winning prominent author who has also produced television documentaries for the BBS and other networks

THE MOTIVATION OF THE CIA

During the Korean War captured American pilots made public confessions of having participated in “war crimes” denouncing their country for making them do these “horrific criminal acts”. Similar scenes were also seen during the Viet Nam War although not quite as dramatic. The CIA initially under Alan Dulles and then under other well known Directors was obsessed with finding out how the United States’ enemies had achieved this mind control or brain washing.. They set up a special division which secretly supplied funds through non-existent organizations to Dr. Cameron and others to do experimentations on humans to learn more about this process.

THE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

It should be remembered that at this time people with schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses were mostly treated in long term hospitals. Hydrotherapy consisting of cold water baths was one of the most common treatments and the few medications that were tried were not very effective. This was before the advent of modern antipsychotic drugs which today while not a cure do enable many people to function with the alleviation of many of their symptoms for much of the time. Cameron apparently believed what he was doing was on the cutting edge of medicine. This book describes physicians who saw Dr. Cameron’s methods at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal  and did not agree with them. However he was such a prominent physician in a position of authority that it took many years before he fell out of favor and the CIA stopped secretly funding this work.

THE EXPERIMENTAL METHODS –LSD, OTHER DRUGS, AND ELECTROSHOCK

One of Dr. Cameron’s techniques consisted of attaching audio devices to patient’s heads and continually playing back specific phrases of their own words which were recorded in a continuous repetitive loop despite the patient’s pleas that it be stopped. He called this “psychic driving” and it was the cornerstone for some of his work for the CIA. Other approaches would use Dr. Cameron’s words forced on the patients through this audio  helmet for extensive periods of time. They were also given new experimental substances such as LSD , usually with the patients not knowing what to expect, which would produce hallucinations and other distortions of reality. The patients would also be kept asleep for long periods of time using various drugs often in large experimental dosages sometimes interspersed with electroshock. The electroshock would be used with a much greater frequency and intensity than was used at that time or at present for legitimate therapy and in the attempt to achieve what Cameron called “depatternization” These approaches would be intermixed on a large number of people going through these procedures. If they would resist treatment they often were given drugs to paralyze them. There are descriptions of secret chambers or large rooms in the basement of the hospital where patients were kept for prolonged periods of time while undergoing these procedures.

EXPERIMENTS ON CANCER PATIENTS WITH POSSIBLE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

During the 1950’s and 60’s there were also other experiments, sponsored by the CIA, by other people documented in this book which involved animals and humans including studies of biological agents which could be used for germ warfare . There was a report of situation in which a prominent doctor in London injected into terminal cancer patients deadly viruses which were being considered as possible biological weapons. These people had no idea that they were being used as medical guinea pigs.

MORE EXPERIMENTS FOLLOWED BY MURDER

Some other work in the book described the involvement of Dr. Richard Wendt who had been chairman of the Psychology Department of University of Rochester when I was a student there in the 1960s. It told of a situation where the CIA flew Wendt to Germany to administer a powder which Wendt made up which was supposed to “make anyone talk”.  After it was unsuccessfully tried on unsuspecting subjects, the subjects were killed.

There is also an account of the strange death of biochemist Dr. Frank Olson who worked for the CIA on LSD. He, himself, was given this drug by the CIA without knowing it and either jumped or was pushed out of a hotel window.  Ultimately the U.S. government acknowledged to his family that he was unwittingly experimented on with LSD and paid them an undisclosed large amount of money.

Still other activities carried on by the CIA were recounted which can only be described as horrifying and bizarre. For example, there was an incident which was reported to have occurred in Viet Nam where a group of medical personnel were brought in to do experimental procedures on prisoners. This consisted of doing an operation on them where electrodes were implanted into their brains using less than ideal sterile conditions. The goal according to this account was to see if aggressive behavior could be created so people might be made into assassins. The experiment apparently failed and the prisoners who were subjects of these experiments were described as being “executed”

SOURCES FOR THIS BOOK

A good deal of this book was obtained through interviews with Bill Buckley who was a long standing CIA agent and had occasion to visit Dr. Cameron and observe his work first hand as well as many of the other activities described in the book including those that took place in Viet Nam. Buckley was a friend of the author and agreed to the interviews with the provision that nothing would be printed until after his death. Buckley was ultimately captured and killed by Hezhbollah. There are many documents, photographs of documents, affidavits and interview notes plus the reputation of the author which make this book quite authentic and believable.

SAFEGUARDS TODAY

Mental health professionals that I know today are concerned and highly competent professionals who care deeply about their patients and their work. Organizations such as Mental Health America and the National Alliance on Mental Illness are dedicated to helping patients and their families. I am pleased to say that American psychiatry today is a vibrant profession where the welfare of patients is of the highest priority and that the American Psychiatric Association has one of the strictest codes of ethics of the entire medical profession. There are many safeguards built in to the profession as well as in the practice of medicine in this country which would not tolerate such aberrant practices as described above. However, the old dictum of understanding history so as to never repeat mistakes is why I recommend reading this book.

Adendum-  Current Movie Satirizes  Use of LSD by the United States

A new movie with George Clooney titled The Men Who Stare at Goats is a comedy and a satire. Included in it is a segment which shows the US Army giving LSD to soldiers who were not aware that they were receiving it. It also showed a TV news report where Iraqi prisioners being held by the US were continually played music to break them down in order to obtain information from them .