LSD AND THE CIA :: essays research papers

lysergic acid diethylamide was invented in Switzerland by Albert Hofmann, a tec for Sandoz pharmaceuticals. It did not spontaneously appear among the youth of the Western world as a gift from the God of Gettin High. The CIA was on to acid long out front the flower children.So, for that matter, were upstanding citizens like Time-Life magnate Henry Luce and his wife, Clare Boothe Luce, who openly sang the praises of their magical mystery tours during the early sixties. Henry, a staunch conservative with tightly fitting connections to the CIA, once dropped acid on the golf course and then claimed he had enjoyed a little chat with God.While the cognoscenti had the benefit of tuned-in physicians, other psychoactive pi wholenessers took their first trips as part of CIA- interpretled research studies.At least one person committed suicide after becoming an unwitting motif of a CIA LSD test, crashing through a highstory plate-glass window in a New York hotel as his Agency guardian watche d. (Or perhaps the guardian did to a greater extent than watch. In June 1994 the victims family had his thirty-year-old corpse exhumed to check for signs that he whitethorn have been thrown out that window.) Numerous others lost their grip on reality.MK-ULTRA was the code name the CIA used for its program directed at gaining control over human behavior through covert use of chemic and biological materials, as proposed by Richard Helms. The name itself was a variation on ULTRA, the U.S. intelligence program behind Nazi lines in World war 11, of which the CIAs veteran spies were justly proud.Helms later became CIA director and gained a measure of glory for his Watergate "lying to Congress" conviction and a touch of immortality in doubting Thomas Powerss aptly named biography, The Man Who Kept the Secrets. Helms founded the MK-ULTRA program and justified its notably unethical aspects with the rationale, We are not Boy Scouts.At the time, the spook scientists suspected that L SD had the potential to reprogram the human personality. In retrospect, they were probably right-Timothy Leary spoke in corresponding terms, though he saw unlimited potential for self-improvement in this reprogramming.