Sidney Gottlieb Part 2: MK Ultra and the CIA's Insane Assassination Plots

James is joined once again by Jayne Friend for part two of our exploration of Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA chemist who led MK-Ultra, developed Cold War mind control experiments, and became involved in some of the agency's most controversial covert operations.

This episode continues to story of Gottlieb's obsessions with LSD and psychological warfare, whilst covering his involvement in CIA assassination plots against Patrice Lumumba and Fidel Castro. James and Jayne examine how the lack of oversight drove MK-Ultra's unethical human experimentation into new and darker places, why MK-Ultra ultimately failed, the mysterious death of Frank Olson, and how Gottlieb escaped criminal prosecution before retiring to live the life of a wandering hippy and humanitarian. They also ponder MK-Ultra's legacy into the War on Terror.

What's covered in this episode

• The career of George White and Operation Midnight Climax, where prostitutes secretly dosed clients with LSD whilst White watched from behind a one-way mirror
• The death of CIA scientist Frank Olson after he was secretly given LSD, the controversy surrounding his fall from a New York hotel window, and later evidence suggesting foul play.
• Gottlieb's role in developing concealed poisons, suicide devices and assassination methods for covert CIA operations during the Cold War.
• CIA plots to assassinate Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba using botulinum toxin, poison kits and other covert methods.
• The extraordinary range of proposed assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, including contaminated cigars, exploding seashells, poisoned diving equipment, beard-removal schemes and LSD-based disinformation plans.
• Why MKUltra was shut down in 1973, Gottlieb's destruction of thousands of CIA records, and how surviving files exposed the programme during the Church Committee and the Kennedy Inquiry.
• Gottlieb's testimony before congressional investigations and his successful negotiation for immunity, leading to his retirement to a farm in Virginia.
• The long-term legacy of MK-Ultra, its influence on debates about interrogation, intelligence oversight and ethics, and comparisons with CIA interrogation methods during the War on Terror.

Mentioned in this episode

Sidney Gottlieb, MKUltra, Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke, Allen Dulles, Frank Olson, George White, Operation Midnight Climax, LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, truth serum, mind control, brainwashing, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, behavioural psychology, chemical warfare, biological warfare, CIA, OSS, Cold War, Korean War, Soviet Union, China, North Korea, prisoner of war brainwashing, Camp King, Nazi scientists, Francis Gary Powers, U-2 Incident, saxitoxin, botulinum toxin, Patrice Lumumba, Congo Crisis, Belgian Congo, Larry Devlin, Fidel Castro, Cuba, Cuban Revolution, Dwight D. Eisenhower, exploding cigars, exploding seashell, thallium salts, Church Committee, Frank Church, Edward Kennedy, Stansfield Turner, Jimmy Carter, CIA oversight, assassination plots, covert operations, human experimentation, ethics in intelligence, War on Terror, Abu Zubaydah, enhanced interrogation, waterboarding, CIA black sites, psychological warfare.

Chapters

00:00 — Sidney Gottlieb: The CIA's Master of MK-Ultra
05:10 — Why the CIA Became Obsessed with Mind Control
10:45 — LSD, Truth Serums and the Birth of MK-Ultra
17:35 — Operation Midnight Climax and Secret CIA Safe Houses
24:40 — Frank Olson: The Scientist Who Fell from a Hotel Window
32:20 — CIA Poisons, Saxitoxin and Covert Assassination Weapons
38:10 — The CIA Plot to Kill Patrice Lumumba
42:00 — Fidel Castro and the CIA's Strangest Assassination Plans
48:00 — The Collapse of MK-Ultra and the Destruction of the Files
53:00 — The Church Committee, Congressional Investigations and Immunity
58:30 — Did MK-Ultra Influence the War on Terror?
1:03:30 — Sidney Gottlieb's Legacy and the Dark History of CIA Experiments 

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History's Devils is a history podcast exploring the lives of murderers, charlatans, psychopaths, dictators, war criminals, tyrants, demagogues, revolutionaries, cult leaders, conquerors, fraudsters, and other controversial figures.

History's Devils is hosted by James Crossland, professor of international history and author of:

Rogue Agent: From Secret Plots to Psychological Warfare, the Untold Story of Robert Bruce Lockhart

The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Modern Terrorism...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

We are back for part two of Sydney Gottlieb and the CIA's Mind Control Project MKUltra. This is History's Devils. My name is James Crosslin. She is Jane Friend. Are you not?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Oh last time I checked, I am. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe my mind has been controlled or I've been erased.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Maybe someone got you with the Urgot.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

That is the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Maybe you've been ergotted. And that's the end of that.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

No, because I've still got my fingers and toes.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

So exactly, exactly. So no, you know. No one's no one's smuggled ergot into your tea. So um, so yeah, to recap from part one, Sydney Gottlieb, it's it's now 1953. Sydney Gottlieb has been placed in charge of MK Ultra. It is a lawless and and quite indiscriminate program uh of trying to uh obtain uh the the the the golden chalice of of mind control using LSD. A few people have died, a number of lives have been wrecked. Um not a whole lot has been achieved. And yet still Sydney Gottlieb is is acting as if this is a real a real project, a real experiment. Like it it a lot of this seems very unserious to him. This is deadly serious. And I'm gonna run through just a few of the the goals of MKUltra as Gottlieb laid out, and you can see how that that line between serious and unserious blurs real damn quick. So MK Ultra's primary purpose was to create substances that will promote logical thinking and impulses, substances that will increase the efficiency on mentation and perception, materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effects of alcohol. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effects of alcohol. So we're only like four lines in and already we've got you know contradictions, magical, magical changing the the effects of alcohol. I I could go on, there's a lot, there's a long list of aims that he put down there.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

It's like it's like they're very specific, but at the same time very broad. It's just, you know, we want to make alcohol work better.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Also, and and to what end? Well, like again, where's where's where's the directive to beat the Soviets to mind control here? Like it's it's and this is this is his sub-projects. This is Gottlieb's, you know, he's got these little sort of side projects where he's just trying to see, and and at the heart of all this, it's it's still LSD, right? LSD is the thing that's gonna this is gonna get us to the promised land. So what he's what he's developed is MK Ultra, although it seems like it's getting more because we're now in the third opera iteration. We've had, you know, uh Project uh Bluebird, Artichoke, now MK Ultra. We've had a few years of this, we've had different CIA, black sites, different experiments with different drugs. Seems like it's it's getting more, you know, uh refined, official, professional, whatever. But the shopping list of fantastical things that he thinks he can he can make happen with drugs is seems to be getting longer. And it should be reiterated. We touched on this in the first episode. There is no real scientific method here, there's no control, there's no variables that are really being taken into consideration when measuring effectiveness. Just dose people and record what happens. It's it's pharmaceutical bandit country being navigated by a guy who, and we we should always keep this in mind as well, Sidney Gottlieb is taking LSD on a semi-regular basis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Um and and and and you sort of wonder if if he's conducting a lot of these experiments, undoubtedly he was probably taking something himself. And so, how how could you possibly hope to produce reliable results?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Well, from his point of view, because it because he thinks this is such a wonder drug, because it sort of opened your minds to new things. I guess his rationale would be, well, I gotta take this drug so my mind can be open enough to see the effects of the drug on it's this you can see this kind of circular logic developing, which is completely bad shit. And and and there is a there is a a cynic would look at this and go, Well, this is just a guy who just wants to take a hell of a lot of drugs.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

I don't know, maybe maybe he saw it a bit like sort of this self-sacrificing thing as well, because there are a few examples of of researchers giving themselves the disease in order. I think it was was it smallpox where you know you give it to yourself in order to prove that the vaccine works, right? Is is is it something like that?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

But but he's given it to himself multiple times and and and and he knows the effects because he's dosing everyone he meets. So I I don't know. You get the sense, you get the sense that this thing is kind of running off the rails the moment the moment it starts, really. MK Ultra. From and that's the thing, it's not like it has like a golden period where everything works, it's it's a mess the whole time. Yeah, and it it's because there's this sort of feedback loop that's been developed by the mid-1950s with MK Ultra, feedback loop between the weirdness of its experiments and the weirdness of not only Gottlieb himself, but the people he employs, which arguably keeps it in this in this state where it just kind of keeps getting more and more wild and reckless. And there's two people I want to talk about here. If you're telling the story of MK Ultra, you do have to mention these two guys. And one of them is an absolutely fascinating, truly bizarre figure named George Hunter White, who is a former employee of the Federal Narcotics Bureau. For that, he had served in the Second World War, so he's a veteran of the Second World War. He worked for the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS is the precursor to CIA. It's the sort of uh American wartime precursor, does a lot of uh psychological warfare, sabotage, uh uh deception operations, intelligence, you know, sort of underhanded black warfare in general. During this time, George Hunter White works on experiments to find truth serums, of course. He is also deployed by the OSS to the Far East. He tends to serve over there. And there he well, he we know that he kills at least one man, and we know I knowing this guy, there was probably far more, but we we know at least one, and we know this because he kept a picture of a Japanese soldier that he had strangled to death. He kept a picture of this man hanging on the wall of his office at the Federal Narconics Bureau.

unknown 7:02

What?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Because reasonable trophy. It's a trophy, it's a reflection, it's something I don't know. Maybe he just looks at it and has fond memories of the time he throwed a man to death. I don't know. White is a strange, strange man. He was known to boast to people about the the folks he tortured and killed uh during the war. And this is not like uh this is this is this is actual boasting. This is like you know, some braggart at the bar going, yeah, you know, those those guys, you know, they they never saw me come and they only saw me once I, you know, chop their heads off with a machete or whatever. Like, and then you know, just swig of a martini and ha, let's, you know, let's then and and and what do you do for a living? Like, like for him, this is sort of casual conversation, this sort of stuff. And this is at a time when, again, he's employed by a federal agency, federal narcotics bureau, and he's part of this web of other federal agencies that are part of this growing intelligence world, which really explodes at the start of the of the Cold War. CIA is central to that, but the FBI is also getting a real a real uh jolt of life at this point. Um, and unless we forget about the intelligence world, it is a shady world full of shady people. And and White just fits in there like a glove. He is just he is just this dodgy, dodgy man, employed by the narcotics bureau, and and through that employment, works with gangsters, works with pimps, works with criminals. And through his involvement with these people, White becomes incredibly fond of taking vast quantities of drugs. And because of his job, if if some new drug, illicit drug comes on the market, he's the guy who who's gonna access it, right? Because he's the guy who's gonna do the raid, sees the thing. And he's also the guy at the at the party who, if someone, you know, busts out, you mentioned in the previous episode that the growth of LSD culture at this time, LSD parties, that sort of stuff. He's the guy who, if at this time someone busts out, you know, hey, I've got some weird pill here, he at a party, he will just snatch it out of their hand and take it without even asking what it is or caring. He'll snatch it, he'll take it, he'll then grab some champagne and the nearest woman, and he'll enjoy his night. Like he he is a he is a big, fat, crass, drug-taking party animal, but he's deeply enmeshed in in early Cold War America's secret world, and that's why George Hunter White is perfect for MK Ultra.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

It it it's crazy how it's like, yeah, they're they're rushing to associate themselves with this guy.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I'm assuming that Gottlieb has got a reputation in the secret world at this time as as the LSD guy, and obviously White is going, well, excellent, I'll I'll love that. You do get this sense of a sort of peas in a pod thing with them where they both and and White, um and we'll get into this. White's motivations, I don't think, are quite as pure as Gottlieb's, but he is definitely someone who is a newer to weirdness. He he does not mind getting involved in strange stuff. In fact, he seems to actively seek it out, and nothing is stranger than MK Ultra at this time. So he's recruited by Gottlieb to extend operations to San Francisco. Uh White was from LA originally, he's native California, and he has a lot of contacts with both the police there and the criminal underworld, particularly with pimps and prostitutes. And this is where he's gonna play a big part. He establishes what they refer to as a safe house in San Francisco, and it's completely funded by the CIA, they pay they pay the rent, they pay for the upkeep of it, they pay for the whole shebang. And this is this is gonna be White's base of operations. And the purpose of this safe house is to be set up as basically a CIA run brothel where prostitutes will be employed with CIA money to lure men into the safe house, and there they will be dosed with LSD. Okay, so we're now we're now extending out. We mentioned in the previous episode, you know, prisoners, university students in need of money, uh uh captured, you know, prisoners of war, whatever, random people going to get treatment for depression or schizophrenia or something. Now we're targeting horny men in San Francisco. Why not? Why not add them to the list?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

They deserve it.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Exactly. It's just it's just this it is just this thing of you know, just just find find people who we can get into a susceptible place where we can where we can dose them.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

It's it's almost like, well, we've we've we've sort of explored that that kind of box of people, you know, that category of people. Let's move on to other degenerates.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, that's it. That's that's it precisely the logic here. Except that it's degenerates watching the degenerates. Because the way this safe house is run, this is extraordinary. So White, as mentioned, is employed to run this safe house for Gottlieb and to organize the prostitutes, make sure that they bring the bring the marks in, uh, give them a glass of champagne with the LSD in whatever. Fine. This is where it gets weird. It's not weird yet. This is just this is just Tuesday at MK Ultra. Now it gets weird. The clients of the prostitutes are lured into a room, which is you know your typical brothel room, except that it's got a uh one-way mirror on one of the walls. Oh no, and on the other side of that mirror is white sat there on a portable toilet, because he can't get up, right? He's got to sit there for hours observing every single minute. I want you to picture this scene, Jane.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I I am, that's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Corpulent man sat on a portable toilet, looking through this mirror, as prostitutes do what prostitutes do to men. Men who are tripping. And not content, not content with this. White, of course, because he's a man who loves his indulgences, he sat there making martinis for himself whilst this is happening. He's necking martinis, he's watching this happening. And supposedly he's making notes on the effects of LSD in this particular controlled environment. I want to remind you at this point the purpose of MKUltra is mind control.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I I love the idea that he's like, yes, this is a very scientific experiment. Yes, I must I must take my notes.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

I'm on my portable toilet. I'm on my portable septic toilet. And I am I am making notes with this martini in hand because god damn it, this is how we beat the Reds. They're coming for us.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Did no one go at any point? Like, this is this is not a dignified way to work, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Well, that's the point. There doesn't seem to be any real oversight here. Like Gottlieb, Gottlieb is the oversight, and Gottlieb himself is tripping.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Wow. And and so and so what's the purpose then of saying, well, we're gonna observe um the the scene, let's say, what's what's the purpose?

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Gottlieb's point of view, it's a it's a it's a controlled environment. You want to test, you know, sexual stimulation with LSD, basically. How do these two things how do these two things blend? I mean, you you want to talk about mind control? You know, uh a saucy woman can make a guy do a hell of a lot of stuff. Like, like that's that that is your base level mind control right there. Yes. I guess he's working from that premise and going, well, what if we add LSD to the mix? What's that gonna do? That's that's the the the most scientific, I think, that Gottlieb can do it. But as for White, he is under no illusions that this is bollocks. And you we know this. The clue is in the name of this operation. It is called Operation Midnight Climax.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

They're joking at themselves.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

He is taking the piss. He's completely taking the piss. White is he he knows what this is, and he left behind a quote to let us know that he knows. Assessing Midnight Climax and its achievements, which spoiler, were none. No, no real findings here. Um, he said that I was a very minor missionary in the project. Actually, I was a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Hey, at least he's honest. At least he's honest. Yeah, I I like it. It almost sounds quite poetic, though. Like no one's been sat on a chemical toilet necking martinis.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

I'm imagining he was tripping when he wrote that. Yeah. I I I I'm oh or there's or there's you know mesculine or ergot or something, something going on uh at that point. Yeah, because that is a little bit a little bit of an out there quote for a for a member of the CIA to throw down as a memoir. But that that's what that was his attitude. He he was like, this is this is a jolly, this is fun. And it should be said in the wider context of some of the more bizarre CIA operations of this time, there is some some evidence to suggest that a lot of the people involved did know that this was ridiculous. And I'm not just talking about MK Ultra, I'm talking about other other, you know, more out there stuff that happens. Uh Operation Mocking Bird was another one, which was a CIA operation to try to control the minds of the American voter, try to sort of reprogram them through news propaganda and things like that. There were a lot of people who kind of were like, Yeah, well, if you're gonna, if you're gonna send me down to, you know, California on the beach for for six weeks to observe the effects, then yeah, sure, I'll find me a bar and I'll I'll have me a good time and you know, I'll I'll claim expenses and I'll tell you that we're that we're that we're fighting the good fight against the Soviets. Like so I I don't think White is completely uh completely uh bizarre in that sense, but he's bizarre in in manifold other ways. And he's he's reflective of the fact that that MK Ultra is basically lawless. And another figure who speaks to the lawlessness and indeed the sort of creepy weirdness of it was a man by the name of Donald Ewan Cameron, who, and I I'm loving how episodes are starting to feed into each other here, because here we have another connection to a previous episode, episode four or five, I think it might have been, looking at Rudolf Hess, one of the more bizarre Nazis, and that is saying something.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Donald Ewan Cameron is the psychiatrist who evaluates Hess at Nuremberg when he's up on trial and incorrectly concludes that Hess does indeed, indeed, have amnesia. Because Rudolph Hess claims multiple occasions I have I have amnesia. And this tells us something about how good a psychiatrist Cameron is, because Hess did not have amnesia, he was lying. It it's you know, it's every other psychiatrist was like, no, this this guy, this guy is lying. But Cameron's like, no, no, no, no, he's definitely suffering like a psychological break and he has amnesia. So that's the quality of mental health practitioner we're dealing with here. Further evidence that Cameron is off the reservation. He argued that mental diseases could be transmitted by weak people to other weak people. Uh, that was a scientific uh proposition of his. He was recruited by Gottlieb to work on a sub-project known as psychic driving. It is not clear if Cameron knew that this was CIA funded. He might have been one of these third-party psychiatrists who's brought in and told here's some research, do something with it. Psychic driving included experiments in which people were locked in cells and give it a repeated message. So let's say you're locked in a cell, uh, there's a loudspeaker, and it says, stop being schizophrenic, stop being schizophrenic, stop being schizophrenic over and over again on a loop, until their behavior altered and they stopped being schizophrenic.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

It's oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

It's like along with tons of drugs and electroshock therapy.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

That probably has something to do with it. But how is I just okay, so it's like if you if you say if you if you say it enough, then you manifest it and it becomes true.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Well, it's it is that thing of the subliminal messaging, you know, people, there was that trend back in the was it like in the 80s, people went to bed with like a uh uh Walkman on with a uh you would you would put a tape into the like a self-help player. Yeah, like it would be like you you will be the best person you can be tomorrow. You will you will make this much money, you will get your dream job tomorrow, you know, and and you'd have it on a loop and you'd go to bed with it, and in theory, you'd wake up in the morning and you'd be you know ready to tackle the world and and beat it to a pulp and triumph over it. Yeah, um, that's that's this kind of woo psychiatry that that that that Cameron deals in. Uh, and he also loves him some electro shock, which you know, results may vary to put it politely on that. Um, as for the victims of the psychic driving uh sub-project over which Cameron presided, many of them forgot who they were. They were not suffering from amnesia before they they had other mental illnesses, but they'd come in, they forgot completely who they were, some forgot who their families were, others developed incontinence, in some cases, uh psychiatric disorders they never had. Because it it's not it's not like he was just testing people with with you know who had schizophrenia. He tested people who who didn't have any mental illness, but he gave them mental illness through treatments. Um that's Donald, you and Cameron.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Irreparably damaging people and then just sending them back out into the the wide world.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

It's yeah, yeah. And and again, this is meant to create mind control to beat the Soviets. None of this. White and his chemical toilet, Cameron and his electro shock and his and his and his self-help tape on repeat. None of this is helping anyone. It it's I mean, I maybe the guys with the prostitutes had a good time, I don't know. But but other than that, like there's no there's no breakthrough here. There's nothing, there's nothing to there's nothing to justify this project getting weirder. It's not like there's a bit of success and and Gottlieb go, well, we're we're we're moving in this direction, and this seems to it's nothing like that. It's just constantly spinning their wheels in in this muck of strangeness. So those are the two of the more out there characters involved in MK Ultra, but even semi-normal people who are on the project nonetheless got involved and got hurt. And probably the most normal of Gottlieb's uh adherents was a man by the name of Frank Olsen, who becomes a really key figure in the story of MK Ultra. What do you got on Mr. Olson?

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Hmm, okay. Really interesting story. This is a I'm gonna spoiler alert, it's a bit of a murder mystery.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Um more murders. More deaths.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

There we go. So he he starts out uh he works for the US Army. He's he's a biological warfare scientist researcher. Um and he works at Fort Dietrich, of course, but he's sort of he's doing some sort of um, I think it's it's army funded project.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Yeah, it's yeah, it's not it's not strictly CIA initially, I think. He's just army guy.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Yeah, so he he one of his main areas of research is is coming back to um a topic we addressed earlier, which is this idea of aerosol dispersal of of things like anthrax. You know, kick all roads lead to anthrax here. So anyway, he's he's he's working on various projects. Um, he's invited to a meeting, a place called Deep Creek Lake, and there's a a secluded cabin. It's basically a retreat for those that are working on NK Ultra. And this is in um late 1953. This is another occasion when a bunch of people go to a party and they are given LSD without realizing it.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Because Gottlieb has turned up to the party, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Because Gottlieb's there. Of course, of course he's there. Um so so he goes and and and I think it's I think it's like nine guys are uh are drugged, basically. And and Olsen is one of them. And very soon after this, he starts experiencing some horrible side effects, maybe, maybe more than some of his colleagues there.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Um yeah, the the other guys don't they sort of recover. They they recover. I mean, they they're they they're tripping, they they feel a bit awful afterwards, but he he goes back to New York, I think it is where he where where he lives, and his wife is like, who the hell is this guy? I didn't marry this man. Like his personality has just just been fried completely.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Absolutely. And and this is this all kind of this whole story takes place within uh a week or so, right? It's not it's not saying he he he his behavior changes, his personality is changing. He starts to express his concerns that there's evidence that places him at the scene of some of these experiments into you know mass poisonings. Um, and and he's visited some CIA sites where there are some of these experiments going on, and and he and he sees horrible things and he sees people dying and and so he starts to have doubts about his role in all of this, and he says, you know what, I know a lot of stuff, and and I want to quit. He basically says, I want to quit, and I'm gonna I'm gonna tell people, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

We we are we are you know what what are we we're maybe maybe halfway through the second episode of of this and we finally got someone with an ethical qualm. Yes, we finally got someone going, hang on a minute. A lot of people are dying. Yeah, what on earth are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

And and he's he's he's like the first person that you're right, have you come across that is questioning this and is actually saying people need to know about how despicable this is. Um but I I you know he's he's also got this sense of conscience that he's like I can't I can't cope with the the things I've seen and the things I've contributed to. Um and so he actually he he pens a report and uh he sort of sends it up the chain to his superiors and says, I've got concerns about all of this, you know, I I want to quit.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

This report goes above Goldlieb's head.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

I I think I think so, yeah. And and this is this is sort of alerts other people to some of the things that are going on, right? Um, and I so I think it's all but five days after he's originally given the LSD, where he's becoming really erratic. Allison is back to New York and he sees, he's in he's told by Gottlieb to see a CIA doctor called Harold Abramson, who we've already met briefly. Um and and he he thinks he's going there for for the you know the best psychiatric care. On the journey, he's he's paranoid to the point where he doesn't eat on the on on the on the journey because he thinks you know he's gonna be poisoned. And and it's it and and actually people around him go, don't be silly, that's just a that's just a myth that you can poison even food.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

We just we we just took you out to a out to a retreat in Maryland and dosed you with LSD. Don't be don't think that anyone's gonna smuggle anything to your food.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

That's preposterous. Yeah, but but maybe that's people around him that don't know that it's actually a reality that he's been involved in actually poisoning people.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Um, and so so his mind is in this fragile state. He's obviously got paranoia, which is is very much justified. He's worried that there will be attempts to silence him. So he he sees uh Abram Sern and he says, I've got you know insomnia, like I've forgotten how to spell things and I've forgotten how to say words, you know, it's it's it it's really quite um it's quite severe, but he's placated, he's actually given uh barbiturates and and told to take them and given alcohol. It's like it just you know, just calm yourself down with this horrible cocktail.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Have a whiskey, have a pill, you'll be fine, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah. Um and so I think his paranoia is absolutely justified. Um, so yeah, he takes, you know, he takes sleeping pills, they go back to New York, they are checked into a hotel, and and he thinks, okay, I will be safe there and and I will receive the proper care. Doesn't quite play out like that because what actually happens is um everyone goes to bed in the early hours of the morning in their hotel on 7th Avenue, his body plummets to the sidewalk, he lands on his back, blood is gushing out. He I think he's only wearing his underwear.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Um so it's it's this idea that he's he's basically freaked out in the night, jumped up from bed, seen the window, run for the window, gone through the window, plummeted like seven floors or whatever, yeah, splat.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah. And and you can see how it could be justified to um onlookers, right? Well, he's he's clearly disturbed. And what what has happened is that he's just he's thrown himself out of the window, or or he's he's he's slipped and he's fallen. Um as I say, he was sharing the the room and no no one claims to have seen or heard anything.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

No. Of course. So we're we're led we're led to believe then that he he rather he's he's having a freak out in the middle of the night. He he rather daintily gets out of bed and sort of goes over to the window and then just silently flings himself off there.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, he silently chucks himself out of the window. Um he was in such a bad condition, his his body was in such a bad condition, no, his his family had to have a clothes casket, and and instantly that raises some questions about was this a suicide or was he pushed? And there was an autopsy, it just said multiple fractures.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Because Which would happen if you've fallen out of a window. This this all makes sense. There's nothing to see here, nothing suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Until Until So his his family, um, so immediately after, you know, his his his widow was, I think, given a payout in the hopes that I'll just go, oh sorry, there we go. Um, but his family will not let this rest. They suspect foul play. So years later, he's re-examined and there is an additional head wound.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Hmm. Which which is not consistent with smacking the pavement, it's like a blunt force trauma head wound, like he's been clubbed over the head with like a wine bottle or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah, absolutely. And this is I think this is in the early 90s or the mid-90s, isn't it? It's been a while. Um and and so they've not let this rest. And and and say this, there's and then there's proof of this additional injury um prior to his death.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

At the very least, he's he's bumped into something or had a scuffle or s or something.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

And then he's gone out the window. Given that he was the only guy to have had an attack of conscience and to have verbalized that and said, look, we need to do something, and as you say, sends stuff up the line to superiors complaining. That you put two and two together and you go, Well, got leave had this guy killed so that he could continue his his project without scrutiny.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

And and I think it it demonstrates the the moment of sheer panic, right? Because in the in the effort to invent a drug which is is for mind control, they've actually done the opposite and made this guy super unpredictable and a massive liability to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

So he's the he's the opposite of controlled. He he is he's completely, you know, yeah. Yeah, I I it's it feels to me, I mean, to my mind, like this sounds kind of callous, but to my mind, it's like I don't know if it matters if they clubbed him over the head and tossed him out the window, or if he threw he threw himself out there because he was in a paranoid fit, they did this to him. Like they they they they they killed him, he he was killed by MK Ultra. Um, and it started with one of Gottlieb's dosing parties in a cabin in in rural Maryland or whatever. And that's pretty grim stuff, but we have to remember that whilst members of MK Ultra are either killing themselves or being killed by their colleagues, Gottlieb, you know, we we mentioned before his ambition, he's always working on other projects. MK Ultra is his big project, but he is regarded as the sort of master poisoner for CIA as well, because of his knowledge of all these different chemicals and toxins, drugs, and so forth. So he gets tapped for his expertise in poisons in a number of other weird and wonderful episodes of CIA Strangeness. Uh, what's some of the stuff that he gets involved with in terms of in terms of poisoning?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

So we're gonna we're gonna start this with a a slight diversion from the main story. Um I I think maybe uh a few people will be familiar with the story of Francis Gary Powers. He was a pilot, he was on a reconnaissance mission um to take aerial photographs, and basically he he's captured.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Flying a U-2 spy plane gets captured by the Soviets, and they've got this, you know, incredible technology, this pilot, top secret mission, big deal.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah. And and you know, that there was like this kind of prisoner exchange with the the Soviets. Uh anyway, so that's a whole other story. But he and other pilots on on similar missions were given a silver dollar, and this was designed to be a suicide tool. So if you're in danger of being captured, the dollar had a uh hollow uh part where there's a tiny pin. This could be pulled out, and on the end of there, you had uh something called a saxotoxin, which is synthesized from shellfish.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Um shuts down your nervous system.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yes, yeah, absolutely terrifying. I mean, you'd need a lot, I think you needed a lot of shellfish for this. Um this fits with Gottlieb's whole thing about, you know, I'm I'm in touch with nature. And yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna turn to the big thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

I'm gonna I'm gonna take all take all the bad stuff from the oysters, I'm gonna synthesize it, I'm gonna kill someone with it.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Um and and and and so this is this is just one of the many inventions that are created around this time by Gottlieb and his team that are how do we make absolutely lethal poisons in as small, small a container as possible? You know, he's he's thinking about little vials of of poison that people can bite down on, and and and having sort of uh poison uh hidden in the frame of your glasses, if you're captured, you bite on the glasses and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

It's proper James Bonds here.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, so so we've got all of these really interesting but crazy inventions. Now, this becomes really helpful. I'm telling you this, this is really helpful because we have a crisis in the Congo. So um, if you're you're not aware, it was under Belgium rule in until 1960. It becomes independent, but this sparks a load of sort of civil unrest and you know, troops are mutinying and all kinds of stuff is is happening internally. So the US and and also the the Soviets are looking at this with interest, right? And the Prime Minister is a guy called Lumumba.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Patrice Lemumba.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Patrice Lumumba. And so they're particularly looking at him with a great amount of interest. Because he's got this situation, he's got the violence and and and whatnot is breaking out, civil unrest is breaking out. So he's putting the feelers out for support from other countries, and one of those is the Soviets, right? Um and and and the US are fearing that there might be some kind of communist takeover.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

We always fear the communists.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

I mean, this in this time period, you know, uh African decolonization, this is this is a common thing where you've got the African nationalist leader takes over, but they're looking for backing from a bigger player. Yeah. And a lot of times it's gonna be Moscow.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Absolutely. So um plans are formulated to assassinate him. Initially, the idea is well, we'll just take him out with a sniper and a and a high-powered rifle. Um, but there were a couple of problems. They feared, you know, they won't be able to get the access to him. So it's it's more reliable if we just poison him. And and for whatever reason, Gottlieb and his plans seem reliable.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

I get again that that word's doing a lot of heavy lifting because we're we're in we're still in this sort of Cold War fantasy land where it's like, yeah, you know, we could could just shoot the guy, but we got all these wacky and wonderful ideas, and someone like Gottlieb, who's a practitioner of the wacky and the wonderful. And that that thing with the I mean, the proof of concept with the silver dollar stuff that had been developed. I mean, yeah, it should be mentioned on on that with the being able to actually that they finally figure out a way to create these these suicide pills, basically, yes, that can be smuggled in an in a silver dollar. Gary Powers does not use his suicide pill when he's gas. He doesn't, he's like, I'm not doing that. And and to the best of my knowledge, I don't think any American pilot ever does. I I think I think everyone's just like fuck that, I'm not gonna kill myself. This is stupid. So that so that's yeah, I mean they've developed it, but it's stupid, basically.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah, yeah, because it's it's it's actually it it's it's designed to be convenient and quick, but actually, who wants to do it and also it doesn't work in practice, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

No, it doesn't work in practice. So the same is true of the Lumumba thing in many respects.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Absolutely. So and then sort of what unfolds is this bizarre series of events where Gottlieb designs a sort of suicide, um, sorry, a poison kit, right? A collection of things that one could could use in order to poison um the leader of a country. So um, in there we have um botulinum, um which you know we we would probably know it as kind of synthesizing to to Botox.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah, yeah. So stuff that people pay lots of money to inject into their goddamn faces. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely toxic. Yeah, absolutely just incredibly scary. So there's a vial of of liquid botulinum toxin. There's a a syringe with an ultra fine needle. I think there's some chlorine. I I'm not a chemist here, but I think you mix the botulinum with chlorine and it changes his chemical composition. Um, and then I find it quite funny that there's there's gloves and a face mask. So if you're the one administering these things, safety first.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Safety first.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

I don't think it would actually help, to be honest. It's it's so lethal. Um and and and so he actually delivers this this poison kit himself.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

It wasn't it the CIA station chief in Brazzaville's guy called Devlin, Larry Devlin, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, he go he goes out there and Devlin is basically said, you know, you're you're gonna meet a contact. And he goes out of his office one day, and I think it's in a place across the street, there's a guy waiting there, and it's Gotley, and and he's been given this bizarre like cover story like I'm Joe from Paris. It's like proper spy stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Yeah, and I've got this mysterious suitcase full of here's the spy kit. God.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

And so so that makes it super un unusual in that he is the architect of this whole plan, really. Um, and he's transporting it himself. Um, it puts him right at the scene of of this. Um, and there's there's other things, you know, he's he's got backup plans like um a poison tube of toothpaste, where if you used it um over a bit of time, then it would sort of get to you eventually.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

And and Devlin's supposed to somehow get this into Lumumba's bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah, yeah. So there are several plans here of of how to sort of get close enough to him, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

And and not one of them comes off. No, no, much like Gary Powers going, Well, I ain't taking that suicide pill. Devlin goes, I'm not doing this, it's stupid.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah, and and and and also, you know, Lamumba, he's got his he's got his security, right? So so the idea is all you can smuggle this into his bathroom, or you can you can smuggle this otulinum um, you know, in in in into his his hotel or whatever and and sort of covertly inject him. Well, that's impossible. You're not going to get close enough to him unless you're within his kind of inner circle.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah, you're you're basically signing yourself up to be killed by his bodyguard as a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah, and yeah. And and I think and Gottlieb kind of realizes, okay, so this is all a bit far-fetched and a bit tricky, isn't it? So why don't we somehow secrete um some toxin or some disease that is commonly found in the Congo? And then it would seem like it's just happened. You know, he's just come into contact with something like smallpox or TB or whatever. Um, but the point is none of this actually takes place because it's it's too difficult.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Because it's too difficult, it's too disrespectful. In in the end, as an important coder to this, he is killed. Lamumba is killed. Um it's the the Belgian authorities are the ones who claim responsibility. I think it's the early orts they they finally say, yeah, we had Lumumba killed. CIA and Devlin are implicated.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Uh uh, to the best of my knowledge, I don't think they were judged as being directly responsible, but they're they're certainly you know involved in that. But it's not it's not Gottlieb's, you know, hair-brained here's your toothpaste stuff that's that's gonna be the culprit here.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

And and I I think I think there were probably you know several other failed attempts on his life as well. So if you include it in the melee of everything that's going on around this situation, it's almost like ah, okay, someone else who tried to bump him off.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, yeah. And that's why it kind of gets gets forgotten because you know that someone else was successful. Um not successful at all, despite Gottlieb's best efforts, was the attempts on Fidel Castro.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Yes, and again, this is gonna get even stranger. Um, so obviously, um Castro is the leader of Cuba for a really long time, wasn't it? Overall, across his whole career.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Um comes to power in 59. Yes, I can't remember when Fidel died, but it's it's not that long ago in the Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

No, it's like the early early O's or something like that. But importantly, there are huge, huge concerns about um this this communist leader. Um, and so let's just let's just assassinate him, why not? And so there's there's actually the order. I think Eisenhower says remove Castro by any means. So Gottlieb goes, I'm the man for this job. Um and so there are two there are two options initially, which is we're gonna spray an aerosol, we're gonna get someone to spray an aerosol of LSD. Of course, um the wonder drug of course um in the studio where he's making his broadcasts because he will then be tripping and he will lose his throw himself out of the window of a hotel. Possibly, possibly, but yeah, the thought was oh, he'll just make him seem uh make himself seem ridiculous and incoherent in front of millions of people when he's trying to give a speech.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Okay, discredit it.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

So so then people will just stop stop supporting him. Um simple, simple, straightforward, which is just crazy, but um, but that's abandoned because like well, actually, that's that's not a sort of a full- Even Golly realizes a stupid idea. Yeah, it just basically just then it turned into like a raving lunatic on the radio, and that doesn't really solve the problem. Now the next plan is my absolute favourite because uh there's this realization that he's you know he's he's got this this quite full beard, right? And it's part of his personality and and and you know the persona and the image. Um so there's a plan to try and make his beard fall out using what like

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Radium? Like what what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Um so yes, LSD. LSD LSD again. But no, but we'll give him some on the side. So no, thallium salts. So there was a there was a plot that basically the next time he stays in a particular hotel, we'll we'll we'll put that in his clothing or his boots, and then he'll come into contact with that, and then his beard will fall out, and then he'll be ridiculous, and the government will be overthrown.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Again, like the there's there's a lot they're drawing a line from A to K and missing a lot of letters in between, where it's just like, yeah, you know, if his beard falls out, that's the end of communism in Cuba.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Um but again, there's there's the same problems with these sort of not quite assassinate assassination attempts, but sort of, you know, discredit let's try and discredit him. The same problems is he's got security and no one can get close enough to him. So so thoughts then turn to serious plots for assassination. Um so there's one idea to contaminate a box of his favourite cigars with with botulinum. This is where it comes around again.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

No, there wasn't. I think there might have been a related one to just make the cigars explode in his face. I could be I could be wrong. I mean, I mean there there are so many daft stories told about death plots.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

So there was an exploding shell plan.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Oh yes, yes, I have heard this one, yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Because he was a keen diver and and swimmer, so there was a particular plan to plant some explosives in a shell and then blow him up with a shell. But then someone noticed, well, actually, the shell that we need that is sort of it is is uh large enough or whatever, the right shape to do this, you wouldn't find on that particular bit of coast.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

And he'd know as a shell of fishing arduous, which I'm sure has a has a proper word. He he would look at that and go, hang on, that shell's not meant to be here. Oh, wait a minute, there's a bunch of C4 stuff in it.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Um so it and and there's even one, you know, we're gonna put some kind of um some kind of irritant uh uh toxin inside his diving suit, and then that will destroy his skin, and you know, a very slow, horrible, painful death.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Um I mean that sounds like Gottlieb. That sounds like a Gottlieb thing. Yeah, yeah but that's the thing, like he's so he's involved in all these all these daft things, whether it's Lumumba, whether it's Castro. And I think this is there's a bigger thing here which relates back to MK Ultra, where it's like none of this ever goes anywhere. Like it's it you've got these these silly ideas, you've got the you know, oh we could do this, we could do that, we could, you know, we could use this weird and wonderful toxin, we could use this. But it it it it never becomes anything real, it's this illusory thing.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah, and and and and because it's the the plan has not been thoroughly thought out, um, you know, again, it the the what would seem m maybe the first option, the straightforward option, well just get someone to put something in his he drank, you know, tea and and coffee and things. Um so just put something in his coffee, like a liquid. But then again, you have the problem, well, how do we actually get it there?

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yeah, no, yeah, that that key part of the plan isn't considered in in I any of these, really. Yeah, and the Lumumba one as well. Yeah, but the point is that Gottlieb is called upon to to this, and this this tells us something about his stature at this point, where it's like, okay, he's not just he's not just Captain LSD, he's also the sort of captain underhandedness, yes, poisons, wacky plans, all the while still directing MK Ultra. And that's basically where he sits until finally in 1973, MK Ultra is finished. It is it is the shutters are drawn down on it, and this is this is Gottlieb's final great act of vandalism. He attempts to destroy all of the paperwork of MK Ultra. So that's a good two decades worth of papers about all of his experiments, all of the projects, subprojects, all this stuff. And he he destroys a lot of them, but he doesn't get all of them. Uh there's about 30, 30,000 or so that that are not destroyed.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Is is is is this him finally gaining a conscience? Um, or is this like no?

SPEAKER_00 48:24

I think it's him going, oh shit, I did all this terrible stuff. I need to cover it up. Because when when MK Ultra ends, he's done. Like he he retires because that the only thing he's he's had going on is MK Ultra. That's the you know, and he he retires. MK Ultra has not achieved any of its objectives. He destroys, as I say, most of the paperwork, but he misses some crucially, and it's those 30,000 odd documents that give us everything that we now know about MK Ultra. If he'd have got all of them, then there's a good chance we'd never know anything about this this project and all the all its horrors. When he leaves CIA, he basically becomes a wandering hippie. He he completely embraces that side of him, that sort of, you know, nature-loving whatever, grows his own organic vegetables, gets a goes out to India with his wife Margaret, and there, and this is where you know this guy just takes so many twists and turns. He goes from being a poisoner of Fidel Castro and executioner of Patrice Lamumba, to setting up orphanages and volunteering at leper colonies.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Doing yoga retreats when he's back in the States, he sets up, he he gets a qualification to teach kids who have stutters, which he had when he was younger, to teach them like speech therapy. He gets qualifications to be a speech therapist. He's gone back to the the inspiring, lovely guy he was before CIA got him.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

He's at this point you could say he has this sort of dual personality. Completely that is inexplicable. Is he now attempting to atone?

SPEAKER_00 50:10

I don't know. I think it's more like a light switch. I I think he kind of, you know, when when he when he got plugged into CIA, he was like, This is my mission now, this is what I'm doing. Yeah. And, you know, it's for the good of the of the of the cold war, whatever. When that's done, when MK Ultra is done and he retires, it's like he just he just flips the switch and goes, All right, I'm back to you know being this gentle old beatnik. The problem is, of course, that it doesn't work like that. Reality doesn't work like that. Reality is going to catch up with you, and it catches up with him shortly into his retirement in 1975, when something called the church committee is convened uh by the Democratic sentencer from Idaho, Frank Church, who is this guy who had long been skeptical about the CIA, long suspected they were up to no good, and particularly concerned about their overreach. The church committee comprises of 126 public hearings. It involves interviewing hundreds of thousands of uh of CIA documents, reviewing them, interviews with about 900 odd witnesses. Church wants to know everything the CIA's been doing during the Cold War, all the funky weird shit. Castro, Lumumba, MKUltra, uh Operation Mockingbird, which I mentioned before, this supposed plan to try to use psychological warfare on the American population. Um, to explain, you know, all the front companies CIA is using uh all this stuff Church wants to uncover. And and in amongst this, he comes across this guy, Sidney Gottlieb, and he's like, Well, who is this guy? We we really need to talk to him because he's in charge of this thing called MK Ultra. And basically they they have to kind of find him because he's wandering around, you know, aimlessly somewhere between India and his in his farm in Virginia. He eventually gets gets put hauled before the church committee, and he's able to persuade them that his testimony will be held behind closed doors, and he will be under the pseudonym of Joseph Scheider. So he gets special conditions. Even then, he offers this bland testimony, lots of I don't recalls, lots of sweeping admissions of, you know, I had one or two conversations with these people about that thing, but I don't recall specifics. He did admit to supplying Devlin with a syringe of poison to kill Lumumba, which he justified on the premise. Uh, and this is a quote that he was a soldier in a silent war that had to be waged. So that's that mindset, the Cold Warrior mindset. Um, and this was the basis upon which he justified revelations about MK Ultra that also came out of the church committee's proceedings. Stuff about Frank Olson, um, you know, the mystery around him, what was it that White was doing with the prostitutes in San Francisco? All of this, Gottlieb, in the form of Joseph Scheider, he gets through this okay, sort of shrugs his shoulders and says, Look, you know, it was a different time. We were panicking. And then at the end of the church committee, he just kind of walks out of there like box ticked. I've I've done my thing. I can now go back to my life in India, you know, uh enjoying drugs, helping lepers, um, chilling, having fun. But it it's not as simple as that because two years later, 1977, Gottlieb is recalled to testify uh after Stansfield Turner, he is the newly installed CIA director in Jimmy Carter's administration. Carter comes to power in 77, January 77, and he's the guy, Stansfield Turner's the guy who discovers these documents that Gottlieb missed. And his eyes pop out of his head. He's like, What the fuck is this? You know, this what what is this guy on the chemical toilet doing? What what is why did this man throw himself out of the window? Why are these bodies being burned at black sites? What mind control brainwashing LSD? What what in gods? And remember, this is 1977, LSD is out there, right? We know you know this is this is this is hippies, and this is these are the left-wing communist beatnicks are the ones taking the LSD. This was meant to be the you know the the the tool of MK Ultra to defeat the commies, yeah. And there it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

But then obviously, you know, it pe people about that kind of alternative culture were were being viewed very harshly at this point. Like we've gone through things like Vietnam, right? So so it's like and what is Gottlieb at this point?

SPEAKER_00 54:31

I mean, this is where you get the descriptions of him as this kind of whacked out old hippie.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

And Stansfield Turner, you know, he wanted to know you get to the bottom of this, and so he so he ends up getting uh Gottlieb again, uh a tribunal. This time he's not permitted a pseudonym. Not that it mattered this time because Gottlieb had had a plan, and this was to send an ultimatum to Senator Edward Kennedy, who is the chair of this new commission, saying, Yeah, I'll answer everything you want to know about MK Ultra. I'll fill in the blanks left behind by all the documents I've burned on one condition: immunity from prosecution. And so Edward Kennedy, he he's got a he's got a problem now because he's like, I I want the truth about MK Ultra. I we all want the truth, the whole Carter administration wants the truth. But but if the truth is what we suspected is we don't want this fucking guy to walk. But uh but I think his calculus was, you know, uh, I may not be able to pin crimes on this guy, but I can send a message to any other future Sydney Gottliebs that there is now oversight at CIA. That's this is what these two the the Kennedy uh commission and the church committee are they they they're seen as sort of turning points of some description in CIA history where there's suddenly the the bandit country is at an end and CIA never does anything corrupt again. That's the that's the that's the idea, right? That's the idea. Yeah, um that's what they're hoping for. And so he uh Kennedy accepts Gottlieb's terms and allows him to detail what he knew about MK Ultra in a closed session with his true identity on the record without fear of going to jail.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

There's there's a there's a really freaky parallel here. We're we're back to the end of the Second World War and the Nazis, where you you are you won't go to trial, you won't you know face any kind of penalty for your crime because the information is more important.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Exactly, exactly. It all comes full circle. And for Gottlieb, I mean he he manages to get a closed session because his lawyer says, look, this man has a heart condition. If we put him out there with a big crowd of journalists and onlookers, we might risk a coronary, which is where is where the nonsense starts because Gottlieb's testimony really wasn't that much different to the one he gave to the church committee two years prior in 75. He claimed that MK uh Ultra was a project of utmost urgency for national security. He evoked the fear of the early Cold War. He he talked about Sobby and Chinese PsyOps capabilities, the Korean POWs. These are all justifications for his experiments. When Olson's death, Frank Olson's death, was raised, he said it was a moment of great personal anguish for him. But in the name of the mission, he and his cohorts decided to keep on trucking and dosing everyone they met with LSD. Despite this, Gottlieb declared to Kennedy's inquiry that he realized by the time MKUltra ended in 1973, he realized that it had been a failure. Um, and that the goals, as stated, were were never gonna be be achieved. He said on the record that there is no such thing as mind control, and that the effect of LSD and other drugs to affect a state of mind control did in fact produce results that were very variable, very unpredictable. Who knew that taking acid, cocaine, mescaline, and all of the above could produce variable results in people? Who who knew that?

SPEAKER_01 58:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Who knew that if you don't have proper clinical trials for anything, then it just uh it's all it's all just people throwing themselves out of windows and freaking out. And that was the conclusion. That again, 20 years of insane experiments, people are dead, millions of dollars of US taxpayer money wasted, heaps of drugs taken and distributed, usually to unwilling and unknowing victims, countless violations of ethics and laws, and again, unknowable number of deaths. The conclusion that Sidney Gottlieb reached about MK Ultra was that drugs are very variable and very unpredictable.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

No shit.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

And mind control doesn't exist as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

There you go. I you know what I think? My theory is right, you will have the people that say anything goes when you're in a state of war. In his mind and his country's mind, they're in a state of war.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

And it's very real, a very real threat. And so he is justifying this. Um and that's I think is as deep as it goes.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

Yeah, that's it. That seems to be it. And and the fact again, I see it as damn near sociopathic that he's able to just go from that to oh, speech therapy for kids who suffered like me. It's a it that is a hell of a flex. Like that, that is that is that is some U-turning right there.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

And and and also we're not even uh speaking about maybe the lasting impact of his work. Um well aside aside from all of the the injuries and the illnesses and everything that he the the impact on on the victims, let's say, but you know, were people picking up his work and going, you know, I we still believe there's a mind control drug and a truth serum, so let's keep working on it.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Well, this is one of the big things with CIA to this day, is that is that you know the tale of this is long. Um you still have folks today who think that a version of MK Ultra is still being run officially, as I say, it ended in 1973, but it's not like you haven't had other bizarre things that have been happening under CIA auspices. It's not like you haven't had them, you know, uh getting involved in the drugs trade when it comes to, you know, crack cocaine in the 80s and stuff like that. And and uh again, it's a it's a different, different calculus, different thing going on there, but still I think in terms of in terms of a direct legacy, I would say there is a direct line between the interrogation experiments conducted by MK Ultra and the use of LSD in those and some of the crimes committed by CIA and other government agencies, particularly at the start of the war on terror. So in 2002, on a CIA black site in Thailand, a suspected Al-Qaeda militant by the name of Abu Zabadaya was shackled, waterboarded, bombarded with noise and light to confuse his audiosensory system. He's waterboarded over 80 times. He's deprived of sleep, put into stress positions and beaten. Now he's not doped with LSD, or really subject to much in the way of drugs. They might have tried some sodium pentathol on him, I'm not sure. But there's a lot of similarities to how Zabadai is treated and victims of Gottlieb because it's that same thing of time of panic, time with time of national security crisis, confusion and fear. America needs answers about an enemy it doesn't really understand. CIA been scaled down since the end of the Cold War, was unprepared for the war on terror, uh, you know, unprepared prepared for 9-11. Uh similar to how, you know, in its infancy, it's not really prepared for the confusion and and the overwhelming fear of the Cold War and the prospect of the Soviets being ahead on so much stuff. And so under that pressure, they took their methods into wacky, dangerous, you know, thoroughly unethical places. In Gottlieb's time, it's to get ahead of the Soviets. Uh, in the Zabadaya case, it was to get what was believed to be time-sensitive operational intelligence about a terrorist attack. Now, in both cases, CIA later admitted that what they did wasn't just ethically wrong, but operationally useless. Because the information Zabadaya gave up, it was later concluded to be not particularly useful. And in fact, most of the information he'd given up that was useful was before they started waterboarding him and trying to bombard him, overwhelming him with sensory deprivation and loud noises, things like that. So it's not a direct legacy, but I think it's I think in terms of the vibes, um, MKUltra, Gottlieb, it's indicative of how, in the right context, with the rationality, overwhelming common sense and the need for results being pressing, the same damaging practices that underpin that quest for mind control, they get replicated in the war on terror. Just to conclude with where Gottlieb ends up, no repercussions, no ramifications, no, no day of judgment for him. The nearest he gets to these two inquiries that he basically breezes through, doesn't get much in the way of real scrutiny. Gottlieb, I think, is helped during the Kennedy panel because he comes across as uh he's he's he's described as being the most muddled of everyone interviewed. Um, and someone actually says, you know, this guy insisted on immunity, but we don't understand why, because he seems to know next to nothing. So that's how well he played this. That's how well he played these people, because he just shuffles in like some old beatnik. And that's the state in which he is allowed to retire comfortably, uh, gets a hobby farm in rural Virginia, he raises goats, grows organic vegetables, probably smokes a lot of weed. Yes. With the occasional acid trip just for the memories. And he dies in 1999. And that's it. That's a that that is it. That's you know, dies without got I I, you know, not gonna guess to what was on his mind in those final days, but whether he thought about all the blood on his hands, all the people who were tortured, killed, lives ruined, or whether he just went, you know what? I hope the goats will be okay when I'm done. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

I I strongly suspect it's the latter.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

It's all about the goats.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

All about the goats.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

All about the goats and the organic vegetables.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

And that seems like as good a place as any to end the story of Sidney Gottlieb, a horrendous poisoner, LSD fiend, um, man in pursuit of the chimera of mind control, who did so much damage, not just to people, but to the institution of the CIA in many respects as well. Um, who, for all the complicity of Dulles backing him and everything else, you know, uh Gottlieb, I I think provided proof of concept for the fact that CIA can be a home to some really nefarious, dangerous, wacky shit. And uh that as much as anything else is his legacy. Thank you so much for joining me on this one, Jane. This was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

You you are welcome. It was tremendous fun. I am exhausted now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

It's yeah, exhausting, horrible fun. That is what we do here at History's Devils. And if you enjoy exhausting, horrible fun, do continue to like, subscribe, leave comments, um uh say nice things, uh recommend to a friend, share on the social medias and things, let people know about us, and we will see you next time for another edition of History's Devils.