Project MK-Ultra: The History of the CIA’s Controversial Human Experimentation Program

Since the early days of human warfare, which may date back to the Stone Age, combatants have sought to gain an advantage through the acquisition of secret information. With the growth of technology, a parallel advantage was sought through the application of numerous types of torture. In the 19th century, the concept of manipulation was added to military tactics, an attempt to influence the minds of assassins, double agents, and world leaders alike to act against their natures. Given the incredible advances in technology brought about by global warfare, the years immediately after World War II would bring about the most extensive formal study of the many procedures by which this effect could be accomplished.

The push to develop torture and manipulation techniques was driven by an “exaggerated fear”[1] propagated by the American military and national press of “mind-control.” American officials believed that Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean communists had reached the “Holy Grail”[2] of mental warfare, and that the United States must follow suit or be left behind. In time, the “transformation of brainwashing from a system of coercive propaganda to a secret program of human enslavement”[3] reflected cultural demands placed on the idea by the Korean War and was preceded by interest in electromagnetics. To the embarrassment of many Americans, 5,000 of the 7,200 American POWs in North Korea signed confessions and petitions to end the war. Most recanted their actions once free, but many did not, and some refused to return to their homeland.

In the end, the peak of the American experimental regimen on unwitting humans grew to vast proportions and splintered into a myriad of disciplines by the mid-20th century. The program came to be known as MK-Ultra after several early incarnations, and to this day, the name has become synonymous with controversy, even as the program’s experiments and results remain relatively mysterious.