9 Bombshells in MKUltra Mind Control Showdown

In its search for ways to destroy a. human mind and body, MK Ultra conducted. the most extreme experiments on human. beings that have ever been carried out. by a US government agency. >> MK Ultra, the reported clandestine. [music] CIA program of mind control and. influence, was thrust into the global. spotlight [music] during a bombshell. congressional hearing. From Jack Ruby. and Charles Manson as potential assets. to an alleged murder cover-up to a. 3-year-old [music] girl's death and. current allegations, including the.

attempted assassination of Donald Trump. to the Charlie Kirk alleged. assassination, [music] we are going to. break down the key moments from this. testimony and put everything into. context. Welcome to Sidebar, presented. by Law & Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So, one of the questions I always get. here on Sidebar and when I cover things. on Law & Crime is, how are you guys able. to turn all of these clips around so. quickly on the stories that are rapidly. developing? And if you're interested in. it, if you're into social media, if.

you're putting things out, uh you know, in content creation in any way, we use. something called Opus Clip. So, this is. an all-in-one AI editor that makes it. really easy to cut, create, and upload. videos across any platform. Through AI, Opus Clip generates B-roll, it reframes. footage, and it even cleans up audio. It. is so easy. Just visit opus.pro/sidebar. You sign up, you upload, and in minutes, you're going to have perfectly edited. clips ready to go for TikTok, Shorts, Reels. Opus Clip is really a one-stop. shop. And having a tool like Opus Clip.

means that our producers can get you. viral courtroom updates instantly. This. is the most powerful tool there is to. share ideas and edit like a pro. So, go. to opus.pro/sidebar. to get a free week and then 50% off. This is a different kind of sidebar from. what we typically cover, what we. typically do. But I got to say, it's not every day you got testimony on. Capitol Hill regarding alleged mind. control and arguably criminal activity. committed by the CIA. Yesterday, there. was a hearing before the House Committee.

on Oversight and Government Reform. It. was titled Mind Control and. Accountability, Uncovering the Truth of. the CIA's MKUltra Project. Now, before. we even get into the details of the. testimony, and we're going to play you a. lot of key moments from it. I just got. to briefly lay out what we seem to know. about this from public records and. reporting. To give you an idea of this, according to the National Security. Archive, the CIA has been accused of. conducting experiments on people using. drugs and hypnosis and isolation and.

sensory deprivation as part of projects. with code names such as Bluebird and. Artichoke and MKUltra. It is believed that MKUltra was. authorized after Allen Dulles became the. Director of the Central Intelligence. Agency in 1953. Now, a name that you're. going to hear a lot about is Sidney. Gottlieb. So, Sidney Gottlieb has been. credited as basically the chief. architect of MKUltra. According to the. National Archives, there is reportedly.

documentation supporting the existence. of MKUltra such as a 1951 memo about a. meeting between CIA and foreign. intelligence officials regarding mind. control research or a 1956 memo in which. Gottlieb apparently signs off on a. project that would quote "evaluate the. effects of large doses of LSD 25 in. normal human volunteers" on federal. prisoners out in Atlanta. According to. the New York Times, back in 1977, then.

CIA Director Stansfield Turner testified. that the agency had covertly supported. research into the control of human. behavior at 80 institutions. We're. talking colleges, we're talking. universities, but it also apparently. operated in federal institutions, hospitals, pharmaceutical houses. And. I'll say the scariest part of the. MKUltra project was that, and this was. the allegation, that substances and. methods were administered to unwitting. subjects, that they didn't even know. what was going on. According to.

Britannica, the program operated. primarily from 1953 to 1964, and the. alleged goal was to erase someone's. memory and then control them. The idea, the goal, the objective, it was aimed at. countering the Soviet Union during the. Cold War. Now, Britannica's article on. MK Ultra's origin states that Alan. Dulles believed the Soviets had already. developed mind control techniques, so. this is a way to respond. And one of the. more elaborate operations, this was.

something called Operation Midnight. Climax, and this is described by. history.com, that in 1955, a former. Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent, apparently hired by the CIA, set up a. trap bedroom out in San Francisco, where. sex workers would be hired to lure men. into this room. The men would be dosed. with LSD without their knowledge, and. then they were observed through a. two-way mirror. And there were questions. that swirled about whether the purpose.

was just to study the effects of drugs. or, you know, voyeurism. It is believed. that in 1973, Gottlieb and then CIA. Director Richard Helms ordered the. destruction of most of the original MK. Ultra records. Britannica reports that. Gottlieb himself shredded seven boxes of. documents. However, it appears that some. material did get out in the '70s, that a. FOIA request for CIA financial records. uncovered additional files about MK.

Ultra, that they had been mislabeled. And that's basically the broad overview, that no one has been prosecuted for any. alleged criminal activity associated. with this program. So, where's the. accountability? Where's the answers? Now, before I even get into that. testimony that you're going to hear from. these witnesses, and the more specifics. of, for example, the alleged abuse, Charles Manson, Jack Ruby, the strange. death of this guy named Frank Olson, what could be happening today? Is the. government operating anything like that. today? It's an interesting conversation. to have. We'll get into it. But the best.

way to explain what MKUltra is or what. the CIA has been accused of doing. is to go to the opening statement from. Task Force on the declassification of. Federal Secrets Chairwoman Anna Paulina. Luna. Okay, representative from Florida. And she emphasized that this is about. transparency. This is about getting. answers. It's about the American people. deserving to know what happened and. bringing justice for anyone that was. affected or victimized, including their. families. But take a listen to how she.

describes it. >> Project MKUltra was not a policy failure. or an overzealous program that got out. of hand. It was a deliberate, systematic. governmental operation that subjected. American citizens, prisoners, hospital. patients, veterans, ordinary people to. LSD, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory. deprivation, psychological torture. without their knowledge or consent. This. went on for 20 years on American soil, funded by American taxpayer dollars, and. authorized by the very top of US. intelligence apparatus.

And this program, when it did end, the. men who ran it did not cooperate with. investigators. They did not come. forward. They committed another crime. They destroyed evidence. The documents this task force has. reviewed are unambiguous. In January. 1973, the director of the CIA, Richard. Helms, prepared to leave office. He. personally ordered the destruction of. MKUltra records. The CIA official document in writing. states, "Over my stated objectives, the. MKUltra files were destroyed by the.

order of DCI Mr. Helms shortly before. his departure from office.". A separate internal account confirms. that Helms telephoned Dr. Gottlieb. directly and instructed him to destroy, quote, "All files pertaining to drug. research and associated activities. Gottlieb completed compiled four people. spent entire day tearing burning down. 152 files. Then Gottlieb had his personal papers. destroyed by his secretary before he. retired. The head of the CIA owned records center.

protested the destruction in writing, but he was overruled. That is obstruction of justice. That is. criminal destruction of federal records. And neither individuals were ever. charged with a crime for it. >> Okay, let's go to the witnesses. Now, one of the witnesses at the hearing was. Dr. Steven Kinzer, and he is a senior. fellow in international and public. affairs at Brown University, and he. wrote a book titled Poisoner in Chief, Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA search for. mind control. And he discussed the. reported purposes of this program and.

some of its. alleged activities. >> I'm painfully aware. that I have discovered only a small. portion of what MK Ultra was and what. Sidney Gottlieb did. In 1951, the CIA hired Gottlieb and. directed him to launch what became MK. Ultra. Gottlieb believed that in order to find. a way to implant a new mind into. someone's brain, you first had to. find a way to destroy the mind that was.

in there already. By any standard, they. qualify as medical torture. These experiments took place in prisons, clinics, and safe houses in the United. States, in Europe, [music] in Asia, and even in. Latin America. Officers of MK Ultra were authorized to. travel to foreign countries, preferably those under formal or. informal US occupation, and ask the local CIA station to provide. them with expendables,

human beings who would not be missed if. they disappeared. Gottlieb had what amounted to a license. to kill. issued by the US government. Neither the number of MK Ultra victims. nor the number of those who were. experimented to death is known. Godtlieb, as a result of this license to. kill, might have been. the most powerful unknown American of.

the 20th century. Some information about MK Ultra spilled. out during the 1970s, but senior CIA officers had. intentionally let Godtlieb operate. without supervision. So, they were able to claim that they. knew nothing about his excesses. This was a way for the CIA to deny its. institutional role in MK Ultra and to. portray it misleadingly as the product. of one man's sadism or excessive zeal.

>> I'm going to tell you right now, look, there has been a lot of research and. study on this topic, of course. But, what you're hearing is the opinion. of Dr. Kinzer. It's going to be. impossible for us right now to. fact-check every specific detail and. claim that he and, you know, the other. witness made during this hearing. So, we're going to play it for you. You're. going to hear what they have to say. We're going to try to put it into. context, but also giving you the. opportunity you hear it, you can do some. research on your own.

I do want to play you something. When. they discuss the reported abuses of this. program, listen to what Dr. Kinzer says. And you're also, by the way, you're. going to hear from investigative. journalist Tom O'Neill, the other. witness that day, author of Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret. history of the '60s. >> What are some of the worst abuses that. you're aware of in the MK Ultra program? >> Uh I can start by just naming I'll I'll. talk about one in particular that always.

sticks in my mind Um. in the federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. a group of African-American inmates was. segregated and fed what were described. in the protocol as double triple and. quadruple doses of LSD every day for 77. days. >> Did they all survive? >> We have no idea what happened to them. and this has stuck with me ever since I. wrote that book. What happened to them? Did they ever find out what was given to.

them? Did they think they were going. crazy? Did they I think if the. >> Do you think we're still experimenting. on prisoners or people in prison today? >> I don't have any information about that. >> Okay. What were the average ages if you. know of the people that were. experimented on? Were these children? Were these middle-age? Were they. >> Well, there were adolescent studies done. in. juvenile detention facilities and um.

jails with kids who were 16, 17, 18. years old and at. institutional schools for wayward kids. The National Training School for boys. here in Washington, D.C. had them. >> And when it comes to secret. experimentation right after World War. II, you know there's going to be a. discussion about Germany and the Nazis. and this alleged operation called. Operation Paperclip where the United. States reportedly recruited German. scientists and engineers and brought.

them to the United States. >> Operation Paperclip brought over 1,600. German scientists into the United States. government after World War II including. individuals who had conducted human. experimentation in concentration camps. The CIA military were aware of their. backgrounds and recruited them anyways. In your research, did you find direct. documentation between Paperclip. scientists and the development of MK. Ultra's experimental protocols. specifically the use of mescaline, hypnosis and sensory deprivation which. were techniques also documented at. Dachau.

>> Absolutely. Kurt Blome, who was the chief of. biological weapons development for the. Nazi government, came to work for the. CIA. So did Walter Schreiber, who was. the surgeon general of the Nazi army. I can just tell a brief story. When I. was researching my book, I found what I. think might be the first secret CIA. prison or black site. It's a nice chalet. in Germany, and the guy who now owns it. took me into the basement. He said, "These were the cells where the.

MK-Ultra officers, working side by side. with Nazis, carried out those gruesome experiments, which were actually just continuations. of the experiments that those Nazis had. been conducting just a few years. earlier, right down the road.". >> Just for timeline and clarification, these experiments were happening after. the Nuremberg trials, correct? So the. CIA would have known that these were. crimes against humanity. >> [snorts]. >> I looked for an episode in which the. Nuremberg doctrines were posted on the.

wall in some MK-Ultra or CIA office, and. I was never able to find any indication. that those Nuremberg principles ever. were even consulted, much less obeyed. By the way, Luna said she's going to. reach out to the German government. Charles Manson, Jack Ruby. So, the. question became were they MK-Ultra. subjects? Were they assets? Start with. Charles Manson, you know, the cult. leader whose followers carried out. savage murders.

>> In the summer of 1969, four young. people, acting on the orders of a cult. leader named Charles Manson, went to the. home of movie director Roman Polanski. and murdered everyone they found there, including his 8 and 1/2 month pregnant. wife, the actress Sharon Tate. The victims were complete strangers to. the to their killers. The The night, Manson's followers. murdered another couple in the same. grizzly. fashion. How had Manson, a barely. literate ex-con, acquired the ability to.

persuade ordinary young people to murder. complete strangers simply because he had. told them to? The pursuit of that answer. the pursuit of the answer to that. question led me to Dr. Louis Jolyon. West, known to his friends as Jolly. West was one of the most influential. psychiatrists in America. I'll spare you. the long and tedious story of how my. Manson reporting led to West led me to. West, except to say that I eventually. learn.

that in 1967, when Manson transformed. into the cult leader we are familiar. with today, he and his followers were. receiving free medical. care at a clinic in San Francisco, where. West had established a base of. operations for a research project he was. conducting nearby. After becoming intrigued by the. allegations against West, I learned that. UCLA, his last academic home, had. inherited his paper following his death. in 1999.

Nearly 2 months and more than 200 boxes. later, I found the proverbial needle in. a haystack. Correspondence between West. and Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the architect. of MK Ultra. What I was able to prove. was that from the moment Manson was. released from federal prison in 1967, he violated his parole, went to the Bay. Area without permission, and was. immediately put under the supervision of. a federal parole officer, who basically. gave him leniency as he gathered his.

group of followers, gave them drugs, um, dominated them, turned them into more or. less subservient robots who would do. anything he said. All that happened. under the watchful eye of, uh, a parole. officer named Roger Smith who was also. doing drug research at the same clinic. that Jolly West had set up his operation. to recruit subjects. All the way until 1969 when Manson. finally ordered the murders that he was.

later convicted of, he had been arrested. repeatedly for escalating. crimes. >> Now, O'Neill acknowledges he wasn't able. to prove definitively, absolutely that. Manson was an asset through MK Ultra. And in fact, there hasn't been, as far. as we've seen, verified, definitive. proof that what Manson did was caused by. or connected to a federal government. operation. What about Jack Ruby? The guy.

who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, right? This was actually explored by filmmaker. Errol Morris who also produced a film. about psychiatrist Louis Jolly West, this doctor. And the allegation was was. that Dr. West conducted a psychiatric. examination of Jack Ruby and declared. him insane. So, with that in mind, I. want you to listen to what O'Neill says. here. >> Jack Ruby, I believe. this is something else. The Warren. Commission investigation.

on the Warren Commission was Allen. Dulles, the former CIA director, who authorized and and ran MK Ultra. until he was fired by President Kennedy. The liaison to the committee for the CIA. who handled the information coming from. the CIA back and forth to the Warren. Commission was Richard Helms who was a. direct supervisor of Jolly West. They. knew who West was. They knew that. what West was capable of and what they. had paid him to do and what he had. reported to them that he could do,

including inducing mental disorders in. people. That was never disclosed to the. commission as far as anyone knows. So, I. believe that West was put in there to. keep Jack Ruby from telling his story. >> Again, nothing we've seen definitively. proves he was an asset or product of MK. Ultra. And I'll tell you what, even on. my NewsNation show, Jesse Weber Live, I. interviewed a retired CIA operations. officer, Rick Della Torre, who said. there is nothing to substantiate the.

Ruby or Manson theories. But you talk. about assets. You talk about alleged. assets. You talk about theories. What about the alleged assassination of. Charlie Kirk? What about the attempted. shooting of President Donald Trump in. Butler, Pennsylvania? You know what? That came up in this hearing because it. goes to this idea. is stuff like this happening today? How do you explain. those instances? Where did it come from? Social media? Algorithms? AI? Is this.

the new form of mind control? >> I mean, to say is that I think if there. are such projects going on inside the US. government, uh there there might be a. sense that uh we can do this without any. hostile supervision. >> What are the possibilities that. that what we've learned in MK Ultra, now. that it has advanced so much to. algorithms and and the computer and. getting to. loners that some of these loners could.

through this just mass. propagation of whatever you're doing, uh could cause someone to maybe take a. shot at a president. >> I know there's a lot of speculation out. there about the uh Butler shooting and I. guess even the Charlie Kirk shooting. I just hate to speculate, um because I. don't know. I have no firsthand. knowledge whether those guys were. programmed through radio waves. or through their computer activity. So,

I would never hazard a guess except to. say what I've already said that they. develop means that we've never been told. about many, many years ago, and I. imagine they've evolved to be much more. effective now. >> It really ties into. what Congressman Burchett was was. talking about with radio waves where. where we have these these. like a. a Venn diagram of individual people and. the military casting a broader net. So.

you have the radio waves, computer. activity, the Operation Mockingbird, programming that is taking place. So what do you see in relation to what. was happening then and and what we are. seeing now that that could be types of. the same kind of programs and even using. direct energy weapons or the like. Mr. O'Neill, you can begin. >> I would just like to say one thing. There was an objective outlined in the.

early proposals for MK Ultra to do. experimentation to see whether they. could do mass conversion, you know, convert entire populations. I think that. had something to do with the France. incident that you were talking about. earlier. Again, today it's all. speculation, but um. back then they were. trying to use psychological. means to see what you could. how you could influence people's.

thoughts. Um Mockingbird played into that, which. if people don't know, that was where. they had CIA assets or co-opted people. in the media who would write write. basically propaganda and try to control. the thoughts and and and beliefs of the. population to what the CIA needed. And. is it still going on today? I I I. would be surprised if it wasn't. >> I want to move on to two things now. First, Frank Olson. This is another name.

that you're going to hear a lot about in. the MK Ultra discussion. If you go to. the Ford Library, you're going to find. documentation on Frank Olson, who is. described in one report this way, quote, "Dr. Frank A. Olson, a biochemist, was a. civilian employee of the Army working at. Fort Detrick in a cooperative effort. with the CIA. On November 19th, 1953, at. one of the periodic meetings of Fort. Detrick and CIA personnel, a dosage of. LSD was placed by CIA personnel in.

drinks consumed by Dr. Olson and others, all of whom were members of the group.". Prior to receiving the LSD, Dr. Olson. had participated in discussions where. the testing of such substances on. unsuspecting subjects was agreed to in. principle. However, neither Dr. Olson or. any of the others was made aware that. they had been given LSD until about 20. minutes after the fact. And this is what. has made his death so strange. This is. what has led to theories that he was.

murdered. So, in a piece by, again, Dr. Kinzer, published in The Guardian in. 2019, he essentially describes how on November. 28th, 1953, Frank Olson crashes through. this closed window of room 1018A at the. Statler Hotel out in Manhattan, falls 10. floors to his death on the sidewalk. below. Apparently, the only other. witness was a CIA colleague in the room. who was sleeping. And it is alleged that. the police investigation was coordinated.

or influenced in some way by the CIA, and in the end, they allegedly concluded. that Olson jumped, that he killed. himself. But, you had those prior claims. of LSD poisoning. He was allegedly sent. to see a doctor reportedly connected to. MK Ultra. So, the idea was, was he. killed to keep everything he knew and. experienced a secret? >> The Frank Olson case, which was. referenced earlier, uh that was a. murder. I don't believe that was a.

suicide the motivation. was because he was going to be a. whistleblower. He worked at the CIA. He. worked on the development of biological. weapons and he was planning to go public. and announce that the United States. government was using biological weapons. in the Korean War. And also he was going to talk share what. he knew about MK Ultra experiments. including lethal experiments and there's. a documented case.

>> How many gentlemen how many people do. you think died through the MK Ultra. program or were murdered? >> And then I've got to call this out. Really chilling story that O'Neill. talked about when it came to Dr. West. this character in the MK Ultra saga. >> When he contracted with the CIA he was. at Lackland Air Force Base. He was a. chief psychiatrist at the hospital so he. began his experiments there. Um. a year after the letter that I quoted in. my statement where he was describing.

what he wanted to do. a year later on July 3rd, 1954. a two three-year-old girl was abducted. and. found later in a gravel pit murdered. and next to a car that had been. abandoned and the search party that. found the little girl's body was. approached by a man who was an airman at. the base and he asked them where he was. and how he had gotten there. He was arrested for the murder and.

described by the. military officers who had him in custody. as being in a trance or daze. He didn't. have any drugs in his system. He didn't. recognize his wife when she was brought. to see him and at his trial where Jolly. West was his advising psychiatrist who. examined him. >> Of. >> Um, >> emerged that he had actually been being. treated at the hospital at Lackland for. in an experimental program to cure his.

chronic debilitating migraine headaches, and he was executed 4 years later. >> So, based on my research, this seems to. refer to the rape and murder of. 3-year-old Sherajo Horton and the. conviction and execution of Air Force. Airman Jimmy Shaver in the 1950s, a. crime documented in a piece by Tom. O'Neill in The Intercept. But, as you heard, Dr. West was. reportedly serving as chief of. psychiatric services at Lackland Air. Force Base. Shaver was an airman who.

apparently had no history of violence, no criminal past, and yet he did this. Shaver apparently didn't remember. anything. West, by the way, Dr. West was accused. in this article of administering truth. serum to Shaver, putting him under deep. hypnosis, and that is when Shaver. allegedly confessed. Now, he reportedly. tried to retract that confession at. trial, and as outlined in The Intercept. piece, there were claims of missing. files related to Shaver that he may have. been a subject of the CIA LSD program.

So, where do we go from here? You know, there was talk of possibly. trying to find additional files at other. hospitals and institutions as. highlighted by Kinzer. But, take a. listen to what he also says should be. done. >> In addition to searching for unknown. documents, this committee could do a. tremendous service by simply asking for. the end of redactions on the documents. that we now have. There are reams of. documents about MK Ultra that have heavy.

sections redacted. In the 1970s, this. was justified by the argument that it. had only been 20 years since these. terrible things had happened, and. revealing details might affect national. security. Now, 70 years have passed. That argument can no longer be valid. So, I would urge this committee to try. to fill out all the blank spaces in the. documents that we have. >> So, it's going to be interesting to see. what comes of this. I mean, look, the. argument was in the hearing, "Look, Congress never got the full story.". Because, by the way, according to. history.com, there were congressional.

hearings in the past on MK-Ultra back in. 1977. This was conducted by Senator. Edward Kennedy. So, he brought in all. these former CIA people, but there was a. lot of "We don't remember. We don't. remember the details." Today's. different, right? Also, now we have. these files from these financial. records. But, with UFOs, JFK, MLK, Epstein, we've recently seen attempts to. lift the veil on these previously secret. stories and conversations. And we're. going to do our best here at Sidebar. to try to cover as much as we can what.

we're learning. So, we have for you right now here on. Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much. for joining us. And as always, please. subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your. podcast. [music] You can also check us. out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you. want to follow me, Instagram, my news. nation show, Jessie Weber Live, Monday. through Friday, 11:00 p.m. Eastern. [music] See you next time, everybody.