Project MKUltra: The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification

Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii, Chairman. Barry Goldwater, Arizona, Vice Chairman. Birch Bayh, Indiana. Adlai E. Stevenson, Illinois. William D. Hathaway, Maine. Walter D. Huddleston, Kentucky. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Delaware. Robert Morgan, North Carolina. Gary Hart, Colorado. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York. Clifford P. Case, New Jersey. Jake Garn, Utah. Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., Maryland. James B. Pearson, Kansas. John H. Chafee, Rhode Island. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana. Malcolm Wallop, Wyoming. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia, Ex Officio Member. Howard H. Baker, Jr., Tennessee, Ex Officio Member.

William G. Miller, Staff Director. Earl D. Eisenhower, Minority Staff Director. Audrey H. Hatry, Chief Clerk.

Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts, Chairman. Claiborne Pell, Rhode Island. Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin. William D. Hathaway, Maine. Harrison A. Williams, Jr., New Jersey (ex officio). Richard S. Schweiker, Pennsylvania. Jacob K. Javits, New York. John H. Chafee, Rhode Island. S.I. Hayakawa, California.

Stephen J. Paradise, General Counsel and Staff Director. Marjorie M. Whittaker, Chief Clerk. Don A. Zimmerman, Minority Counsel.

Dear Mr. Chairman: In my letter to you of July 15, 1977, I reported our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project conducted from 1953-1964. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella project" under which certain sensitive subprojects were funded, involving among other things research on drugs and behavioral modification. During the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee investigations in 1975, the cryptonym became publicly known when details of the drug-related death of Dr. Frank Olson were publicized. In 1953 Dr. Olson, a civilian employee of the Army, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent while attending a meeting of CIA and Army officials. A few days later he apparently committed suicide by jumping through a window of a New York hotel. His family later received a payment from the Congress after a private bill was enacted.

During the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee investigations the CIA was asked whether there were any records of MKULTRA projects. A search of Agency files located only a 1963 Inspector General report on the program, prepared after the Agency had become concerned about the propriety of some of its aspects. No other records could be found. Almost all of the people who had had any connection with the aspects of the project which interested Senate investigators in 1975 were no longer with the Agency at that time. Thus, there was little detailed knowledge of the MKULTRA subprojects available to CIA during the Church Committee investigations.

It appears that in 1973, when the then Director of Central Intelligence became concerned about the breadth of the investigation of CIA activities then underway, he sought to reduce the number of files containing information which might be misunderstood. MKULTRA files were among the many destroyed at that time. The destruction of MKULTRA files in 1973; the 1963 report on MKULTRA by the Inspector General notes on page 14: "Present practice is to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs."

What we believe the most significant aspects of this find to be. To begin, as to how we discovered these materials. The material had been sent to our Retired Records Center outside of Washington and was discovered there as a result of the extensive search efforts of an employee charged with responsibility for maintaining our holdings on behavioral drugs and for responding to Freedom of Information Act requests on this subject. He found seven boxes of documents at our Retired Records Center in Rockville, Maryland which had not been inventoried and had not been located during the 1975 searches. These documents had been retired there by the individual who had managed Project MKULTRA and who apparently did not destroy them because they related to a financial audit of the program rather than to its substantive aspects.

The contents of the boxes are briefly described as follows. The boxes contain over 150 separate research projects, a large number of which clearly relate to efforts by the CIA to develop means to control human behavior. Many of them appear to relate to the possible use of drugs in such control. A large number represent research in legitimate scientific fields. There is a great deal of material on drugs, hypnosis, electroshock and the like. The documents include the names of many institutions and individuals, many of whom obviously had no idea they were working for the CIA. I think you should know that we have notified each institution that had, as best we can determine, a relationship with MKULTRA.

As of this writing, we have identified the institutions that appear to have knowingly assisted CIA. We have also identified the records which relate to research which involved human testing. The records also contain the names of researchers who, based on the documents, may have used human subjects. Faced with the necessity of rapid action to forestall possible unauthorized disclosure, I gave the institutions and researchers two to three days notice before turning the documents over to your committee. I recognize that this brief period allowed insufficient time for them to react or to seek counsel, but I believed the overriding factor was the responsibility to inform the Congress as quickly as possible.

The great bulk of the MKULTRA records that were available have, it appears, been destroyed. What remains in the seven boxes are records relating primarily to the financial aspects of the program. The operational records — those which would have described the specific research undertaken in each subproject — are not available. Thus, while we can identify most of the institutions involved, we often cannot determine exactly what was done at each institution. Where we have been able to ascertain the nature of the research, we believe most of the research involved legitimate scientific investigation. The little we know about the specific research which does appear to have involved human testing indicates it was related to the use of drugs. We are presently in the process of re-checking all MKULTRA files to ensure that no other records exist.

Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is meeting today and is joined by the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources chaired by Senator Kennedy. The subject of the hearing is Project MKULTRA, a program of the Central Intelligence Agency which was concerned with research into behavioral modification and which in some cases involved the administration of drugs and other substances to human subjects without their knowledge.

Two years ago, the Senate Health Subcommittee heard chilling testimony about the human experimentation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over 30 universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." At least one death, that of Dr. Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers.

The discovery of the documents now before us requires the Senate and the public to face up to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in activities which were clearly illegal and which were clearly contrary to the values of a democratic society. The seven boxes of documents now before this Committee reveal a program which involved over 150 separate research projects. It is difficult to estimate how many people received drugs or other substances as subjects, witting or unwitting, of these experiments.

Some may ask why we need to know any more about these activities, given the fact that they have long since been terminated. The answer is simple: We need to know if this can happen again. We need to know what safeguards, if any, are now in place to prevent its recurrence. And we need to know if individuals, institutions, and foreign governments were harmed as a result of these activities so that we can determine if any remedial action is appropriate.

Some 2 years ago, the Senate Health Subcommittee heard chilling testimony about the human experimentation activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over 30 universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." At least one death, that of Dr. Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers.

The documents reveal a far more extensive series of experiments than had previously been thought. Eighty-six of the 150 separate research projects involved experiments on human beings. Researchers at 44 different universities, hospitals, prisons, and mental institutions received CIA funds for their studies through front organizations established specifically to channel funds to these researchers while hiding the CIA's involvement. The researchers themselves were not always aware of CIA sponsorship.

Since the documents do not include details of the actual research carried out under these projects, we have written to the 44 institutions to request any records they may have. We hope this will enable us to determine the nature and extent of the research actually carried out. Today's hearing, then, is a preliminary one. We have called the Director of the CIA to testify on the background of the program and the nature of the documents discovered. We look forward to further hearings in the future.

I would like to note one final point. Reading the documents now before us is a chilling experience. One project involved slipping LSD to unwitting Americans in social situations. One project involved drug testing in sexual situations using female agents. One project studied the use of drugs for magicians. The CIA apparently tried to develop a drug that would make people tell the truth. The documents describe research into drugs that would produce amnesia, i.e., that would cause a person to forget what had happened to him. They describe research into drugs that would alter sexual patterns. One researcher studied the use of certain drugs on terminally ill cancer patients. All of these experiments were carried out without the knowledge or consent of the subjects.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: I have a brief statement which I would like to present, and I would ask that my longer prepared statement and letters of July 15 and July 26 be inserted in the record.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee to discuss Project MKULTRA, a long-term program of research in behavioral modification conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 until 1966 or possibly later.

In July 1977, following a search of our records conducted in the process of responding to a FOIA request, we discovered that some of the records of the project had been placed at our Retired Records Center in Rockville, Maryland, and had escaped the 1973 destruction of MKULTRA records. I immediately informed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Health Subcommittee of our discovery. In view of the fact that these are sensitive documents, we agreed to hold the information closely until we could both review the documents and take steps to notify affected parties of their existence.

As I stated in my letter of July 26, there were seven boxes of records, comprising over 150 separate research projects. A large number of these projects appear to relate to efforts to develop means to control human behavior, and many involved the use of drugs. Others appear to relate to legitimate scientific research which may have had, at most, only an indirect connection to behavioral modification. I have provided for the Committee a summary of what we know about the projects. This summary is attached to my prepared statement.

Let me turn briefly to the background of the project itself. MKULTRA was formally authorized by the then Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles, on April 13, 1953. The broad outlines of the project had been described to Mr. Dulles in a memorandum dated April 3, 1953, from Richard Helms, then Acting Deputy Director for Plans. That memorandum is reprinted in the Appendix. Mr. Dulles approved the project in a memorandum to the Deputy Director for Administration, dated April 13, 1953, also reprinted in the Appendix.

The MKULTRA program produced extensive research under approximately 150 subprojects. The subprojects were conducted at universities, hospitals, prisons, and mental institutions across the United States and Canada, and sometimes overseas. The research involved, among other things, the study of LSD and other hallucinogens, hypnosis, electroshock, harassment substances, and paramilitary devices. Much of the research involved the testing of drugs and other substances on human subjects, some of whom were aware that they were part of a testing program, and many of whom were not. There are clear instances of where LSD was given to unwitting subjects.

In the documents we have provided the Committee there is evidence of at least one death attributable to these experiments. That individual is Dr. Frank Olson, who was given LSD without his knowledge in 1953, and who died several days later. The records we have provided your staff contain a document describing his death. There may be other cases, but the records we have are not complete enough for us to determine this.

The research was funded through a complex series of funding mechanisms. The CIA established a number of front organizations — academic-sounding foundations — which provided grants to researchers at universities and other institutions. In most cases the researchers and institutions were not aware of CIA sponsorship. In some cases, senior officials at institutions were witting. A number of researchers were directly witting of CIA sponsorship.

By the time of the 1963 Inspector General's Report on MKULTRA, which I understand you have already received, there were concerns within the CIA itself about the propriety of the program, particularly with respect to the testing of substances on unwitting subjects. That report recommended the termination of testing on unwitting subjects in the United States, and within a relatively short period this appears to have been implemented, at least within the United States.

As I noted, the records of MKULTRA were largely destroyed in 1973 on the orders of the then Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. Helms, and Mr. Gottlieb, who had directed the program. The destruction occurred in the context of the intense public and Congressional scrutiny of CIA activities which was then underway.

I want to emphasize that we do not condone the activities reflected in these documents and that the CIA of today would not engage in such activities. We are committed to the principle of informed consent and to the preservation of individual rights. The programs reflected in these documents were wrong, and they were in violation of ethical standards that should have governed them. I am sorry for what was done then. I believe it important for our nation that the record be made available.

Senator Inouye: Admiral Turner, how many people were involved in MKULTRA as subjects of the experiments?

Admiral Turner: Mr. Chairman, we simply don't know. The records we have found relate primarily to the financial aspects of the program, not the operational aspects. So in most cases we cannot determine how many subjects were involved in each subproject. In some cases, the documents make clear that human subjects were used. In others, we can only infer it.

Senator Inouye: How many institutions were involved?

Admiral Turner: We have identified 44 institutions — universities, hospitals, prisons, mental institutions — that received MKULTRA funds. In most cases, the institution was not aware of CIA sponsorship. In some, senior officials were aware. We have notified all of these institutions of the existence of these documents.

Senator Inouye: Were any of these experiments conducted on foreign nationals?

Admiral Turner: Yes, Mr. Chairman, some were. The documents indicate research was conducted in Canada and possibly in other countries. The Canadian research was conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal under Dr. Ewen Cameron, who received CIA funds through a front organization. The nature of that research was quite severe. It involved intensive electroshock, drug-induced sleep for extended periods, and sensory deprivation.

Senator Inouye: Were the Canadian subjects informed?

Admiral Turner: Based on the documents, it does not appear so. The patients were patients of the hospital who consented to treatment, but they did not consent to participation in CIA-sponsored research, and they were not informed that the treatments they were receiving were being funded by the CIA.

Senator Kennedy: Admiral Turner, the documents describe research into drugs that would produce amnesia. Was that research successful?

Admiral Turner: Senator, the documents do not tell us the results of most of the research. They are financial records. They show funding, contractors, and subproject numbers. They do not describe what was actually done or what the results were.

Senator Kennedy: The documents also describe sexual entrapment operations. Can you describe what those involved?

Admiral Turner: Senator, some of the documents appear to describe the use of female agents in testing situations involving drugs. The details are not fully clear from the financial records.

Senator Kennedy: Were any of the researchers prosecuted?

Admiral Turner: Senator, to my knowledge, no. The statute of limitations on most of the activities would have run by this time.

Senator Kennedy: Is the CIA currently engaged in any behavioral modification research involving human subjects?

Admiral Turner: No, Senator. We are not. I can assure the Committee of that categorically.

Senator Kennedy: Admiral Turner, I want to ask you directly about Dr. Frank Olson. You have acknowledged that he was given LSD without his knowledge. You have acknowledged that he died as a result. This happened in 1953. His family did not learn the truth until 1975. His son has stated publicly that he believes his father's death was not a suicide, that it was a murder. What does the CIA know about the circumstances of Dr. Olson's death?

Admiral Turner: Senator, the documents we have found describe the circumstances of Dr. Olson being given LSD at a meeting in November 1953 without his prior knowledge. They describe the onset of a disturbed mental state in the days that followed. They describe his death on November 28, 1953, when he fell from a window at the Statler Hotel in New York City. The documents do not address the question of how he came to go through that window. That question was investigated by New York authorities at the time. I cannot tell you more than what the documents show.

Senator Schweiker: Admiral Turner, I have been reading these documents very carefully, and what strikes me is the systematic nature of this program. This wasn't a rogue operation. This was authorized at the highest levels. This was funded through the normal budget process. This went on for more than a decade. How do we prevent this from happening again?

Admiral Turner: Senator, I believe the answer lies in the oversight process. In 1953 there was very little Congressional oversight of the CIA. There was no Senate Intelligence Committee. There was no requirement to report to Congress on sensitive programs. The programs I have described today would not be possible under the current system of oversight because they would have to be reported to this Committee, and the Committee would not and should not permit them.

Senator Schweiker: But the oversight system depends on the CIA telling the truth to the Committee. The documents we are looking at today were hidden for decades. They were ordered destroyed. They were only found by accident.

Admiral Turner: Senator, that is correct, and I cannot defend what was done. What I can tell you is that I am personally committed to a policy of full disclosure to this Committee. If there are things the CIA is doing that this Committee should know about, I will tell you.

Senator Huddleston: Admiral Turner, the documents reference institutions in Canada. Did the Canadian government know about the MKUltra activities in their country?

Admiral Turner: Senator, based on the documents we have, I cannot make a definitive statement about what the Canadian government knew. The research was conducted at a private institution, the Allan Memorial Institute, and funded through a private foundation. Whether the Canadian government was aware of the CIA's involvement, the documents do not tell us.

Senator Huddleston: Was any of this research shared with foreign governments?

Admiral Turner: The documents we have are primarily financial records and do not address the question of information sharing. I cannot answer that definitively from what we have.

Senator Morgan: Admiral Turner, I want to be sure I understand the scope of what we are discussing. You said there were 150 separate subprojects. How many of those involved the testing of substances on human beings without their knowledge or consent?

Admiral Turner: Senator, based on the documents, I cannot give you a precise count. The documents tell us that human testing occurred in a number of subprojects. They do not always specify whether subjects were witting or unwitting. From the Inspector General's 1963 report, which does exist and which you have received, we know that by 1963 there was a program of testing on unwitting subjects in the United States, conducted through arrangements with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. That program was recommended for termination by the Inspector General.

Senator Morgan: Was it terminated?

Admiral Turner: Senator, the Inspector General recommended termination of testing on unwitting subjects in the United States. The records suggest that this recommendation was substantially followed, though the overall MKULTRA program continued until at least 1966.

Senator Hart: Admiral Turner, let me ask you about the destruction of records. In 1973, Director Helms ordered the MKULTRA files destroyed. Mr. Gottlieb carried out that order. Is that correct?

Admiral Turner: That is our understanding, Senator, yes.

Senator Hart: Was that destruction of records a crime?

Admiral Turner: Senator, that is a legal question I am not qualified to answer. I would note that the Department of Justice has examined this question.

Senator Hart: The documents that survived survived because they were misfiled at a records center rather than properly identified as MKULTRA records. Is that correct?

Admiral Turner: That appears to be the case, Senator. The boxes were financial records that had been sent to the Retired Records Center by the individual who managed the program, apparently without being indexed under MKULTRA. When the 1973 destruction order was carried out, those boxes were not identified and were not destroyed.

Senator Hart: So if that one employee had not been thorough in searching the Retired Records Center in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, these documents would never have been found?

Admiral Turner: That appears to be correct, Senator.

Senator Hart: And we would have no record of what was done to these people?

Admiral Turner: The Inspector General's 1963 report would still exist. But the financial records identifying the 150 subprojects and the institutions involved would not have come to light, yes.

The following is the summary of MKULTRA subprojects as submitted by the CIA to the Senate committee, drawn from the financial records discovered in the seven boxes. The operational records — those describing what was actually done in each subproject — were destroyed in 1973.

The subprojects fell into the following general categories as described by CIA in its summary to the Committee:

Research involving drugs. A substantial number of subprojects involved the procurement and testing of drugs, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, scopolamine, and other substances. The research included both laboratory testing on animals and testing on human subjects. Some human testing was on witting subjects who consented to participate. Some was on unwitting subjects.

Research involving hypnosis. Several subprojects involved research into the use of hypnosis for behavior modification and for the extraction of information. Some of this research involved testing on human subjects.

Research involving electroshock. Several subprojects funded research into the effects of electroshock on human subjects, including research at hospitals where patients received treatments as part of their medical care.

Research involving sensory deprivation. Several subprojects funded research into sensory deprivation, isolation, and the psychological effects of controlled environments on human behavior.

Research involving harassment substances. Several subprojects involved the development of substances that could be used to harass or incapacitate individuals covertly.

Research involving paramilitary devices and materials. Several subprojects funded research into devices and materials that could be employed in covert operations.

Research involving sociology, psychology, and anthropology. Prior to 1962, MKULTRA funded a large number of projects in the fields of applied psychology, sociology, anthropology, and graphology. The CIA's 1963 Inspector General concluded that many of these projects were insufficiently sensitive to justify the waiver of normal Agency control procedures under which MKULTRA operated.

Institutions identified as having received MKULTRA funds through CIA front organizations or directly include the following categories: universities, including a number of major research universities; hospitals, including mental hospitals; prisons; foundations established by the CIA to channel funds; and private research organizations. In total, 44 institutions have been identified. CIA has notified all of them.

Testing involving unwitting subjects. The documents confirm that testing of MKULTRA substances on unwitting subjects occurred. The CIA's arrangement with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics beginning in 1955 involved the release of MKULTRA materials to Bureau agents who administered them to individuals in social settings. Test subjects included informers, members of criminal organizations, and other individuals cultivated within the narcotics control setting. The program operated safehouses in New York and San Francisco for this purpose. The Inspector General's 1963 report recommended termination of this program.

The following section is drawn from portions of the hearing record and submitted documents relating to the CIA's safehouse operations in the United States for the purpose of testing MKULTRA materials on unwitting subjects.

Beginning in 1955, the Technical Services Division of the CIA entered into an informal arrangement with certain officials of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. This arrangement provided for the release of MKULTRA materials to Bureau agents for testing on individuals in social settings. An initial arrangement was established with a senior representative of the Bureau and one of his assistants on the West Coast. A parallel arrangement was established on the East Coast in 1961.

The sum of $10,000 per year was provided to each of the two projects to cover the cost of cultivation of targets and of maintenance of a safehouse in each area for the observation of effects of substances on selected test individuals. The safehouses were maintained in New York City and San Francisco.

Test subjects were sought and cultivated within the setting of narcotics control. Some subjects were informers or members of suspect criminal elements from whom the Bureau obtained results of operational value through the tests. Testing was also performed on a variety of individuals at different social levels.

A significant limitation on these tests was the infeasibility of performing scientific observation of results. The Bureau agents were not qualified scientific observers. Their subjects were seldom accessible beyond the first hours of the test. In a number of instances the test subject became ill for hours or days, including hospitalization in at least one case, and the agent could only follow up by guarded inquiry after the test subject's return to normal life.

The CIA's Inspector General, reviewing the program in 1963, concluded that the final stage of covert testing of materials on unwitting subjects was the most sensitive aspect of MKULTRA. The Inspector General found that no effective cover story existed for the program, that present practice was to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs, and that suppression of knowledge of critical results from the top CIA management was an inherent risk in these operations. The Inspector General recommended termination of this phase of the MKULTRA program.

Among the institutions receiving MKULTRA funds was the Allan Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The Allan Memorial Institute was directed by Dr. Ewen Cameron, a prominent psychiatrist who was at various times president of both the American Psychiatric Association and the World Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Cameron received CIA funds beginning in approximately 1957 through the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, a front organization established by the CIA. The funds supported research at the Institute into techniques including psychic driving, which involved the repeated broadcasting of recorded messages to subjects in drug-induced sleep; intensive electroshock therapy administered far beyond normal clinical levels; sensory deprivation for extended periods; and drug-induced sleep lasting weeks or months.

The subjects of this research were patients of the Allan Memorial Institute who had presented themselves for treatment of ordinary conditions including anxiety and depression. They had not consented to participation in CIA-sponsored research. Many sustained permanent injury. Some lost memories of large portions of their lives. The Canadian government did not become aware of the CIA's involvement in this research until the 1970s.

At the time of the 1977 hearing, the full extent of the Allan Memorial Institute operations had not yet been established from the surviving financial records. Subsequent litigation and research established the scope of the program more fully. Several of Dr. Cameron's patients later received settlements from both the CIA and the Canadian government.

On November 19, 1953, Dr. Frank Olson, a civilian biochemist employed by the U.S. Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, attended a CIA conference at a retreat in rural Maryland. At that conference, his drink was spiked with LSD by a CIA officer without his knowledge or consent. He was not told he had been given the drug until approximately 20 minutes after ingestion.

In the days that followed, Dr. Olson exhibited symptoms of a disturbed mental state. On November 28, 1953, he fell to his death from a window at the Hotel Statler in New York City, where he was staying while receiving psychological consultation arranged by the CIA. He was 43 years old. His death was ruled a suicide.

His family was told he had died of a fall. They were not told he had been given LSD. They were not told he had been part of a CIA program. They did not learn the truth until 1975, when the Rockefeller Commission report disclosed the existence of the incident in general terms, without naming Dr. Olson. His name became public when the CIA subsequently informed his family.

In 1976 the U.S. government paid the Olson family $750,000 in settlement of their claims, pursuant to a private act of Congress.

Dr. Olson's son, Eric Olson, has maintained for decades that his father's death was not a suicide but a murder, that his father had become a security risk to the CIA and was killed to prevent him from disclosing what he knew about U.S. biological weapons programs and human experimentation. In 1994, Dr. Olson's body was exhumed. A forensic examination found evidence of blunt force trauma to the skull inconsistent with the account of a fall through a window. The New York District Attorney investigated and determined the evidence was insufficient to bring charges. The case has never been definitively closed.

In January 1973, Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all MKULTRA records. Sidney Gottlieb, who had directed the program from its inception, carried out the destruction. The order was given in the context of intensifying Congressional and public scrutiny of CIA activities related to the Watergate investigation.

The 1977 hearing record establishes that the destruction was thorough. The operational records — those describing the specific research conducted in each of the 150 subprojects, the identities of subjects, the results of experiments, and the instructions given to researchers — were destroyed. What remained in the seven boxes discovered in 1977 were financial records: funding authorizations, budget tracking documents, and payment records. These were sufficient to identify institutions and subproject numbers but in most cases insufficient to reconstruct what was actually done.

The CIA's 1963 Inspector General report had already noted that the program maintained minimum documentation by design. That report stated that present practice was to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs and that only two individuals in the Technical Services Division had full substantive knowledge of the program, most of which was unrecorded. By 1973, when the destruction order was carried out, the program's operational record existed primarily in the memories of those two individuals, one of whom was Gottlieb himself.

Senator Hart's questioning at the 1977 hearing established the implications directly: that if a single employee had not searched the Retired Records Center thoroughly in response to a FOIA request, the financial records would never have been found, and the public and Congressional record of MKULTRA would have consisted only of the 1963 Inspector General report.

The following institutions were identified in the MKULTRA financial records as having received funds, directly or through CIA front organizations. In most cases the institution was not aware of CIA sponsorship. The CIA notified each institution before turning the documents over to the Senate committee. This list is drawn from the documents appended to the hearing record and from the CIA's summary submitted to the committee.

Universities and research institutions receiving funds: Boston Psychopathic Hospital (later Massachusetts Mental Health Center), Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Rochester, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, University of Oklahoma, George Washington University, Western Reserve University, Tulane University, University of Maryland, University of California Los Angeles, New York University.

Hospitals and mental institutions: Emory University Hospital, the Addiction Research Center of the National Institute of Mental Health at Lexington Kentucky, the Bordentown New Jersey Reformatory, the Ionia Michigan State Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C., the Allan Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal.

Front organizations established by CIA to channel funds: the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (later renamed the Human Ecology Fund), the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation (which channeled some funds though not itself a CIA creation).

The list is not complete. The destroyed operational records contained information about institutions and researchers that cannot be reconstructed from the surviving financial records. The CIA acknowledged this limitation explicitly in its submissions to the committee.

I want to make one final point. These documents represent only what survived by accident. They survived because a program manager misfiled financial records at a records center that was not searched during the 1973 destruction. The operational records — those that would have told us the names of subjects, what was done to them, what the results were — are gone. We do not know how many people were harmed. We do not know if any are still experiencing effects. We do not know if some died as a result of these experiments other than Dr. Olson.

What we do know is that for more than a decade, an agency of the United States government systematically administered drugs and other substances to American citizens without their knowledge or consent. We know that the program involved 150 separate research projects at 44 institutions. We know that it operated safehouses for the purpose of administering drugs to unwitting subjects. We know that the records were deliberately destroyed to prevent exactly the kind of accounting we are attempting today.

I am committed to continuing these hearings. I intend to hold further sessions as we receive responses from the institutions that have been notified and as we are able to reconstruct more of what was done. The American people deserve to know the truth about what was done in their name.