
The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control - Anon84
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief
======
calibas
I find it odd that people make such a big deal about the failed "mind control"
programs, while ignoring the ones that were disturbingly successful:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodr%C3%ADgue...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Delgado)

~~~
yters
Interesting, wonder if we could modulate the electric grid and influence the
emotions of a nation?

~~~
rolph
yes and more. There are a large number of routers that are designed to revert
to a backup copy of firmware and configuration.

    
    
      An attack would involve making electrical service cycle its voltage 3 times in succession,
     thus causing reversion to a default mode. The majority of routers would be in Out of the Box State, and highly pwnable.
    

It is very conveinient that 3phase power can provide 3 surges of ~60vac if the
correct attack is used on a generation station, or inter-tie station.

if you are of the 3rd party firmware persuasion, you should flash your router
configure, and then flash again, so your backup will be a secure firmware with
a secure configuration.

Among the things router manufacturers should do is change this aforementioned
behaviour to something like 5 failed reboot attempts in succession, rather
than 3 reboot attempts.

~~~
clipboardisfull
Where could I read more on that firmware reversion hack? I searched what was
quoted, but it only ties back to your post.

~~~
the_pwner224
rolph's reply to this seems a bit... off the rails.

This part makes me think it's all a big conspiracy theory:

> such a router will have two instances of flashed firmware and you can toggle
> between the instances by flicking the power switch [3times] rapidly so you
> produce 3 boot failures. this is true in the case of linksys routers and
> many others but not all, so read often, implement successfully the first
> time.

I recently purchased a high-end Linksys router and flashed OpenWRT on it so I
know exactly what he's talking about. Like modern smartphones, they have two
firmware partitions, A and B. When you are booted into the A partition and
download an update, it is applied to the B partition. On the next boot the
device uses the B partition and then eventually applies the same update to the
A partition. This means that updates can be applied without having to restart
the device and wait a long time for the flash, and it also means that the
device can revert to the A partition if there was an error updating the B
partition. That's why it was added a few years ago to Android.

This is explicitly advertised as in the marketing for newer high-end routers
(and other things, like computer motherboards).

In OpenWRT you actually have to manually flash both partitions - update the
router, reboot into the other partition, and then update again to apply it to
the first partition. Which seems to be what rolph is talking about when he
mentions flashing updates twice to be a deterrent to this exploit. What
doesn't make sense is that rolph implied that the fix of flashing twice
applied to all devices.

\- On devices with dual firmwares, the stock firmware flashes updates twice to
complete the update process \- On devices with one firmware but a secret evil
firmware, the evil firmware will not be affected by updates, so flashing a new
firmware twice will not fix the exploit (which is the opposite of what rolph
said)

I would assume high-end older routers do contain a backup stock firmware that
can be loaded after multiple failed boots, just like Windows will boot to
recovery mode if it fails to boot a few times.

rolph hasn't provided any solid evidence to back his conspiracy theory. That
doesn't mean it isn't... as you can see in the comments here, there's tons of
stuff we don't know about. Also see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17311005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17311005)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5981399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5981399)

So it might actually be an evil CIA/NSA plot. Or it might not.

------
qwerty456127
This is weird. I can hardly imagine how can LSD be used to control somebody
rather than to free him. Every single time I've taken LSD (or other
psychedelics) it felt great. The first time I have taken it I've also
experienced sense of beauty and love so deep and extatic I could not
previously imagine, another sense I've experienced deeply was how absurd
violence, as well as pride and hatred are. It also helped me to realize non-
duality and mindfulness so now I fear neither death nor imprisionment, let
alone ridiculous verbal manipulations. Nevertheless I haven't became a hippie,
I still maintain my hygiene and do my job.

It is also a well-known fact LSD doesn't work the next day you take it and you
have to rest for about a weak before you can repeat the trip (but, to be
honest, I am to mention I haven't checked this myself).

~~~
dadarepublic
>Every single time I've taken LSD (or other psychedelics) it felt great.

I'm glad you've had a good experiences with LSD every time you've taken it.
But even a simple look into the history and culture of LSD and you would know
that very "bad" trips are possible. I'm shocked that you haven't done more
research into LSD as a whole.

>It is also a well-known fact LSD doesn't work the next day you take it and
you have to rest for about a weak before you can repeat the trip (but, to be
honest, I am to mention I haven't checked this myself).

Your assertion of "a well-known fact" is in fact false. I'm glad you put the
last part in parentheses.

It sounds like you are prime for some reading on the history of LSD &
psychedelics, understanding the effects long & short term, understanding how
the drug(s) works, and how there were attempts to weaponize it (of course
there were).

Apologies if the tone of this comment is a bit down on you, it's not meant to
be, I just _really_ hope you educate yourself before speaking again on this
subject.

~~~
qwerty456127
> I'm glad you've had a good experiences with LSD every time you've taken it.
> But even a simple look into the history and culture of LSD and you would
> know that very "bad" trips are possible. I'm shocked that you haven't done
> more research into LSD as a whole.

So you are essentially shocked with your own assumption. I've never mentioned
I don't know about the "bad trips" theory (although I can only speculate about
how does it feel and why can it happen as long as we are talking about LSD, I
have only met one person who had a bad trip experience and it was with
n,n-DMT).

I also know enough about how does it work on the brain chemistry level.

As for the military usage and related history - I'm not interested enough to
invest more time than it takes to write a comment expressing my surprise and
my experience so others could share the essential parts in response if they
feel like they want to.

~~~
dadarepublic
>So you are essentially shocked with your own assumption.

What assumption? The assumption that you haven't done more research into
psychedelics? LOL. Yep. Cool story bro.

>As for the military usage and related history - I'm not interested enough to
invest more time

Yeah... so you just don't do research. Idk why you didn't just admin that in
the first place.

Tbh I love your comment, I really do. The amount of ignorance you spew is a
good show. _Grabs popcorn_

------
2mc84j395hn663h
Only tangentially related since the following is not about "mind control" but
about "psychological control". Seems like in 2007 CIA was still interested in
that.

This is an extract from the section "Special Handling" in [1]:

#+BEGIN_QUOTE A well-trained espionage recruiter will search for vulnerable
targets. Professional intelligence officers are trained to "spot" outward
signs of trouble in a person's history or behavior -- such as tumultuous
relationships or frequent job changes -- and to evaluate the deeper, more
enduring psychological dysfunctions that may be at the root of the problems.
These professional recruiters are trained do deploy sophisticated
psychological control techniques matched to the vulnerabilities they have
detected in order to manipulate, apply pressure, or induce a person to commit
espionage.

Some intelligence services do not limit themselves to exploiting pre-existing
problems, but may actively foster crises to enhance the target's
susceptibility to recruitment. Common forms of such aggressive pursuit and
manipulation of targets include emotional or sexual entrapment and financial
manipulation through increasing the target's level of debt. A psychologically
vulnerable target's grandiosity, sense of being above the rules, or vengeful
impulses can all be manipulated in the service of recruitment. #+END_QUOTE

What I found interesting was that the same terminology ("psychological
control", "handler") was used also by stratfor's Friedman in the stratfor
leaks [2].

[1]
[https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001407031....](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001407031.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3QAe64n0JhVjmMuutjXvLPVlZJ_MGS_kK8iFFxZLhOKmM0HWlWuU9xmxs)

[2]
[https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=202526&fbc...](https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=202526&fbclid=IwAR2_vz-3g4foV3eO1DWhYTJ5Z8ZsF6aLXnQbkgUMAWYaJOxFYIeuGNV9ckg)

------
jonplackett
Admittedly unrelated but... I love that this link has a “decline tracking
cookies and just give me plain text version of the site”

~~~
saagarjha
It doesn't look like this is an option for American readers, unfortunately :(

------
zyxzevn
Interview with Stephen Kinzer (On Ripple Effect Podcast)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-Z77BhI1c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-Z77BhI1c)

------
senorjazz
Never understood they experimented with LSD, I would have though to
unpredictable, something like scopolamine would have had better effects. It is
often used in South America to control their victims as if all there free will
is gone. It is highly effective in small doses (not LSD small but still quite
small), the victim is often taking to the ATM and told to take out the money
which they do willingly.

Never tried it myself, but the wife had it used on her when a student, luckily
she had only about $15 in her bank account at the time, but says it is like
being in a dazed / dream like state where you just go through the motions

~~~
bowcoy
They experimented with a wide array of drugs, including LSD, fish poison, and
Scopolamine. At first, the CIA was predominantly concerned with (aerosol)
weaponization and investigating if dosing an unwitting agent, diplomat, or
soldier with LSD could be used to extract secrets. Later they became
interested in the counter culture of the 60s (and making sure the Russians
were not turning a new generation against its own society/military).

[https://fightingmonarch.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/human-
dr...](https://fightingmonarch.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/human-drug-testing-
by-the-cia-1977.pdf)

> Among the drugs illegally used by CIA against American citizens are (a)
> hypnotic sedatives such as amobarbital, aprobarbital, butabarbital sodium,
> chloral hydrate, methotrimeprazine hydrochloride, midazolam hydrochloride,
> paraldehyde, pentobarbital, pentobarbital sodium, quazepam, secobarbital
> sodium, sodium pentobarbital, temazepam, triazolam, and zolpidem tartrate,
> (b) hypnotics like demerol, desoxyn (combined with sodium pentothal),
> methyprylon, and pentothal acid, and (c) memory blockers such as
> acetylcholine, BZ, and _scopolamine_.

[https://patents.google.com/patent/US4858612A/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US4858612A/en)

> A method and apparatus for simulation of hearing in mammals by introduction
> of a plurality of microwaves into the region of the auditory cortex is shown
> and described. A microphone is used to transform sound signals into
> electrical signals which are in turn analyzed and processed to provide
> controls for generating a plurality of microwave signals at different
> frequencies. The multifrequency microwaves are then applied to the brain in
> the region of the auditory cortex. By this method sounds are perceived by
> the mammal which are representative of the original sound received by the
> microphone.

[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-
intelligence/kent-csi/vol5no2/html/v05i2a09p_0001.htm)

> Only a handful of cases in which scopolamine was used for police
> interrogation came to public notice, though there is evidence suggesting
> that some police forces may have used it extensively. 2, 16 One police
> writer claims that the threat of scopolamine interrogation has been
> effective in extracting confessions from criminal suspects, who are told
> they will first be rendered unconscious by chloral hydrate placed covertly
> in their coffee or drinking water.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum)

> The United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) experimented with the
> use of mescaline, scopolamine, and marijuana as possible truth drugs during
> World War II. They concluded that the effects were not much different from
> those of alcohol: subjects became more talkative but that did not mean they
> were more truthful. Like hypnosis, there were also issues of suggestibility
> and interviewer influence. Cases involving scopolamine resulted in a mixture
> of testimonies both for and against those suspected, at times directly
> contradicting each other.

~~~
webninja
Did any of them actually work?

~~~
bowcoy
I don't know, but those in the know are still (allegedly) using them.

> PRISONERS INSIDE THE U.S. military's detention center at Guantanamo Bay were
> forcibly given "mind altering drugs," including being injected with a
> powerful anti-psychotic sedative used in psychiatric hospitals. Prisoners
> were often not told what medications they received, and were tricked into
> believing routine flu shots were truth serums. It's a serious violation of
> medical ethics, made worse by the fact that the military continued to
> interrogate prisoners while they were doped on psychoactive chemicals.

> BZ was invented by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche in
> 1951.[5] The company was investigating anti-spasmodic agents, similar to
> tropine, for treating gastrointestinal ailments when the chemical was
> discovered.[5] It was then investigated for possible use in ulcer treatment,
> but was found unsuitable. At this time the United States military
> investigated it along with a wide range of possible nonlethal, psychoactive
> incapacitating agents including psychedelic drugs such as LSD and THC,
> dissociative drugs such as ketamine and phencyclidine, potent opioids such
> as fentanyl, as well as several glycolate anticholinergics.[6][7] > By 1959,
> the United States Army showed significant interest in deploying it as a
> chemical warfare agent.[5] It was originally designated "TK", but when it
> was standardized by the Army in 1961, it received the NATO code name
> "BZ".[5] The agent commonly became known as "Buzz" because of this
> abbreviation and the effects it had on the mental state of the human
> volunteers intoxicated with it in research studies at Edgewood Arsenal in
> Maryland.[5]

> As described in retired Army psychiatrist James Ketchum's autobiographical
> book Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten (2006), work proceeded in
> 1964 when a general envisioned a scheme to incapacitate an entire trawler
> with aerosolized BZ; this effort was dubbed Project DORK.[8] BZ was
> ultimately weaponized for delivery in the M44 generator cluster and the M43
> cluster bomb, until all such stocks were destroyed in 1989 as part of a
> general downsizing of the US chemical warfare program.

> The U.S. Army tested BZ as well as other "psycho-chemical" agents on human
> subjects at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland from 1955 to 1975, according to
> declassified documents.

------
5trokerac3
“I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.” -
Alexander Acosta

Who cares what the CIA did 60 years ago? Why isn't NPR reporting on what they
may be doing now?

~~~
2mc84j395hn663h
Because finding out that the research on "mind control" continued would be a
big scandal, and in the past journalists like Gary Webb and Michael Hastings,
who uncovered scandals about the CIA, did not to end well. Probably the CIA
didn't kill them, but I'm convinced it contributed to mess up their life
enough to disrupt their work. Intelligence agencies around the world consider
themselves, rightfully or not, guardians of national interests. If a
journalist works to uncover stories that could damage them, she/he may be end
up being considered a threat not only to the agency, but also to national
interests and that would put she/he at risk. Since there are not enough
structures in place to let unjust behaviors on the part of intelligence to be
scrutinized, researching on such things is not something I would do without
also expecting ill-fated consequences.

~~~
dasKrokodil
> Probably the CIA didn't kill them

Wasn't Gary Webb found with two bullets in his head? Sure, it's possible that
he fired those himself. But it's still highly suspicious IMO.

~~~
yters
How would he fire the second bullet?

~~~
rolph
it is also possible for a firearm to doublefire. its most common with un
maintained semi auto pistols, but can happen easily enough with large calibre
revolvers, due to the recoil.

~~~
Enginerrrd
It doesn't have to be unmaintained. A 1911 pistol can be made to bump fire
pretty easily, especially if you have it in a weird position. While it really
isn't impossible, if you take kind of a Bayesian view, the likelihood that it
was mis-attributed murder probably goes up considerably once you restrict
yourself to the subset of double gunshot suicides.

------
ghobs91
The Netflix show Stranger Things was loosely based on this. It was originally
going to be called "Montauk" and take place on Long Island, as there were
conspiracies of mind control, time travel, and other experiments going on at
Montauk Air Force base.

------
JetSpiegel
> Whitey Bulger was one of the prisoners who volunteered for what he was told
> was an experiment aimed at finding a cure for schizophrenia. As part of this
> experiment, he was given LSD every day for more than a year. He later
> realized that this had nothing to do with schizophrenia and he was a guinea
> pig in a government experiment aimed at seeing what people's long-term
> reactions to LSD was. Essentially, could we make a person lose his mind by
> feeding him LSD every day over such a long period?

Can a mind be destroyed but continue to have self-awareness to realize it was
being treated as a guinea pig? Does the experiment proved it was all BS?

------
pseingatl
Former CIA mind control projects:

Ted Kaczyinski

Charles Manson

------
sandinmytea
It's grim, what will happen to the ones who thought they had this all locked-
up.

The use of otherwise forbidden topics is especially poignant. The secrets of
ancient techniques are inadmissible practically everywhere, thanks to the
disturbing involvement of so many sworn oaths against their best interests.

As a recipient of their methodology, I can say there's sadly no good results
for them in the near future, since what they've been doing produces counter-
effects which will both expose, identify them and their various exchanges,
records, and put them under the exact same circumstances.

------
anentropic
re same book and topics, some different details pulled out:
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-
co...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-
murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets)

------
Mindwipe
There's a book called Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control by Dominic
Streatfeild that goes into this topic well if people are interested.

(And by well I mean takes a fairly sceptical view that they ever really got
anywhere, and generally makes the case that the CIA ended up so desperate to
counter perceived Russian abilities that they really stopped asking if any of
the people they were hiring in this area were either total con-men or just
completely nuts.)

------
DoctorOetker
on the NPR site, it offers me text only version, but then the relevant article
is not in the short displayed list of articles.

does anyone know the "sId" code?

an example URL of the text only site:

[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=759523615](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=759523615)

~~~
sgift
[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=758989641](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=758989641)

~~~
DoctorOetker
may I enquire what steps you took to procure this link?

~~~
JetSpiegel
It's right after the date on the URL

~~~
DoctorOetker
thanks!

------
yters
Why would the government take any of these woo topics so seriously? Is there
some kind of factual basis they are using, something concrete that would
suggest there is merit? I'm doubtful it's based on complete conjecture and
wishful thinking, but maybe you give people enough money and enough leeway and
they'll just research oddball stuff.

~~~
sharot4
By "woo" topic you mean "mind control"?

I like to do a thought experiment. If mind control is possible, will the CIA
want to use it? If the CIA uses mind control, will they tell you about it? If
they say that the program was a failure and was shut down, are they telling
the truth?

I recommend taking a look into a thing called "trauma-based mind control". It
may alter your way of thinking. Or it may not.

~~~
yters
Well, there is certainly is a kind of mind control used by many ideologies.
So, ideology based mind control certainly happens. Also, hypnotic mind control
is possible to some degree. I guess it depends on what is meant by mind
control, because some forms are very common and not at all controversial.

------
Yuval_Halevi
"During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that
communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control
human minds. "

When I read it I actually tried to imagine how it was to live back then and to
act based on rumors. It was a crazy time to be a secret agent that's for sure

~~~
caseysoftware
The US just finished a multi-year investigation into rumors fueled by a
dossier created with rumors. People don't change, just the people involved.

~~~
bananocurrency
this is an interesting way of looking at things -- to compare the potential
discovery of mind control to the investigation of a long time grifter. Your
phrasing almost makes it seem as if there is just as much truth to each
"rumour".

------
AndyMcConachie
There's nothing in that article that we didn't already know. It seems like
this is only getting attention now because someone wrote a book.

Is there some new revelation in this book that makes it worth reading?

~~~
en-us
[https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

~~~
AndyMcConachie
I'm not making fun of anyone. I'm interested in what's new in this book.
MKULTRA is old news. Surely there must be something new in this book that
previous books haven't covered. What is it?

~~~
Synaesthesia
I don't think many people know the full extent of the MKULTRA programs,
especially the attempts at mind control, brainwashing, dosing people with
psychedelics unknowningly, extensive torture with drugs, experimentation on
prisoners and stuff. Some of it approaches the Nazi experiments in just the
sheer immorality of it all.

~~~
marnett
I agree no one knows "the full extent", and I do not think we ever will. A lot
of information is out there though - available as far back as the late 80s. A
lot of this came out when Harold Blauer's [0] sued the U.S. government [1] for
testing drugs on him without anyone's consent when he was institutionalized
for depression. The drug tests were covered up for 22 years...

I'm happy to see some headlines to hopefully inform some more folks, but you
really have to go digging for this stuff intentionally to get to juicy
details. If you are interested in doing so, I recommend picking up Weiner's
"Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA".

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Blauer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Blauer)
[1]
[https://apnews.com/2e5220ecb195844edacfbffdb0a37a5a](https://apnews.com/2e5220ecb195844edacfbffdb0a37a5a)

------
yters
Did they research news media and social media?

------
kd3
Interesting that the CIA imported LSD. I thought they were just Cocaine
Importing Agency. I guess we can expect anything from Criminals In Action.

~~~
RaceWon
> I thought they were just Cocaine Importing Agency.

No not at all--[1] Viet Nam was all about protecting the Opium Poppy... kinda
like "we" do in Afghanistan now.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking)

------
lerie
people still think this is news?

------
mcurtis
I'm sure most people in power weren't taking this research seriously even 60
years ago, when it was running.

~~~
cf141q5325
The criminals doing it took it serious, the atrocities were real and the list
of victims whos lives they ruined is rather long. Once people hear MK ULTRA
they think about staring at goats and LSD but the darker story behind it is
the research on sensory deprivation, on torture to break involuntary subjects
more reliably. From the school of Americas to Guantanamo to by now most
regimes across the world, they all have to thank those "pioneers" of modern
torture. The Canadian Dr Cameron who got the funding for his work on psychic
driving through MKUltra isnt mentioned in the article but his work on the
subject cant be described as anything but monstrous.

edit: "A Question of Torture" by Alfred W. McCoy is a good book on the
subject.

~~~
Synaesthesia
That's correct. The CIA have actually learned the best form of torture is
psychological torture and mastered that.

