The Role Of LSD And Politics In The 1960's
LSD and Politics in the 1960’s
Joseph Archer
The 1960’s: A Global Counter Cultural Movement
Fall 2014
Lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD or acid is a powerful hallucinogenic drug that fascinated a generation of Americans during the 1960’s. LSD was first discovered by Albert Hofmann accidently in 1938 while he was looking for a blood stimulant. In 1943 Hofmann would discover the psychedelic effects of the drug by accidentally consuming some in his lab. While the discovery of LSD was an important event that accidently started a new counter culture, the drug was not popularized until the 1960’s by individuals such as Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey. During this time period, LSD saw an increase in popularity due …show more content…
to its recreational use with the hippies and the counterculture of the time period. As a result of the popularization of LSD in American society, it became a heated political topic in Washington D.C. and was used in secret experiments conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. While LSD is mostly known for its recreational and spiritual hallucinogenic effects, a couple of significant events took place during the 1960’s that would forever change the future of the drug.
One of the most significant events that involved both LSD and politics in the 1960’s is the CIA’s Project MKUltra. This top secret CIA project was created for a couple of reasons. First, during the Korean War captured United States pilots began confusing to crimes they did not commit. The United States responded by telling american citizens the confessions were false and that the pilots had been brainwashed by the enemy (Mind Control). Another reason for the creation of Project MKUltra was the suspicion of a more powerful mind control technique having been developed by the chinese. This suspicion was sparked when american prisoners of war were marched through the chinese province of Manchuria. The prisoners apparently experienced blank periods in their memory. This spread a fear that the prisoners had become hypnotized and were possibly programmed to perform acts of war against the United States. This fear also lead to the concept of a manchurian candidate (Mind Control). Project MKUltra would officially be started in April of 1953 with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb at the head of the project. MKUltra was seen as a priority and was authorized to use 6% of the entire operating budget of the CIA and was to have no guidelines or oversight for how the money was to be spent (Project).
When Project MKUltra was created the objective was clear, to examine methods of controlling and influencing the mind. One of the main reasons this technology was needed was to aid in the extraction of information from resistant subjects during interrogation (Project). However, this was not the only goal. MKUltra was also attempting to find different substances capable of causing paralysis, stimulating the effects of alcohol, increasing paranoia, or even causing damage to the brain (Project). While results were important to the CIA, secrecy was just as important. MKUltra was being conducted during the Cold War and this resulted in a constant fear of being infiltrated by a foreign spy. One technique that the CIA used in an attempt to protect the information was segmented operations. This meant that each operation was separated from the others (Project). This type of structure prevented a single person from understanding the whole project making it difficult for a spy to steal information. Another way the CIA maintained secrecy was while conducting experiments researchers would lie to patients or not tell them what drugs they were being given (Project). While this method is unethical, the CIA felt is necessary to break this code of ethics to protect the secrecy of the project.
In order for the CIA to produce results, they needed to conduct experiments that involved human test subjects. The CIA was able to get some volunteers for the project however, most of the participants did not know at the time they were participating in Project MKUltra. Throughout the project, test subjects from over fourty-four different colleges and universities participated (Project). Other places the CIA was able to get participates from was hospitals and prisons. Some prisoners who were being imprisoned for drug usage where even bribed with more drugs for their participation in the experiments (Mind Control). The experiments run during MKUltra were highly unethical and some were without the consent of the patient, one experiment even had a prisoner take LSD for 174 days straight in order for the CIA to experiment with the prolonged effect of LSD (Project). The CIA did have some issues with the experiments, they feared that the tests were not meeting field conditions because the participants were aware they were taking drugs and that in order to test for field conditions participates could not be told (Mind Control). Operation Midnight Climax is an operation run by the CIA in San Francisco during the 1950’s that fits this type of description. During this operation the CIA hired prostitutes to bring clients back to a set house and slip them LSD in a drink. Then CIA agents would observe from behind a one way mirror (Mind Control). The CIA used this approach in order to protect the secrecy of the project, also not many people were willing to report being drugged by a prostitute to the police. While this is very illegal, the CIA was willing to take a risk in order to run the experiments they felt necessary. Another way the CIA gathered information about the effects of LSD was by creating front companies. These front companies would then pay pharmaceutical companies to conduct experiments for them (Project). Project MKUltra did not only experiment with LSD and many other drugs were used for many different tests.
It is difficult to know the exact number of people who died during Project MKUltra because most of the records were destroyed, but some known deaths have still come from the project. One of the most notable deaths from the project is Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was an army scientist as well as a researcher for the CIA, working in the bio-warfare program (Mind Control). At a CIA retreat Olson and the other agents present were given LSD without their knowledge. This caused Olson to have a bad reaction and after the retreat he began suffering from paranoia and nervous breakdowns. Unfortunately, before Olson could be placed in a mental institution for recovery, he jumped out of a ten story window in his hotel room (Mind Control). While there is not direct proof, some people believe that Olson was persuaded by the CIA to kill himself.
One of the most important figures involved with Project MKUltra was the well known Scottish psychiatrist Donald Cameron. Before being recruited by the CIA, Cameron was experimenting with reprogramming the human psyche, with some of his experiments aimed at erasing a person memory (Project). In order to achieve this reprogramming, Cameron was known to put patients into a drug induced coma for several weeks while playing loops of repetitive noises or sounds. He was also known to have administer electroshock therapy thirty times more than normal power (Project). Some of his other techniques included using sensory deprivation or locking patients in a room with no stimulants for weeks at a time. These experiments would sometimes cause severe damage and some patients started to develop amnesia. In order to increase the secrecy of the experiments and to keep Cameron’s experiments out of United States jurisdiction, the CIA moved Dr. Cameron’s to Canada to finish his experiments (Project). Cameron was never able to finish his work however, while out on a hiking trip Dr. Cameron has an accident and dies in 1967, in the middle of his Project MK Ultra experiments. It is also said that Cameron’s family destroyed the records of his experiments (Project). While this death is not as suspicious as with the death of Dr. Olson, there is still suspicion among some people about Cameron’s death and the destruction of all of the records.
In December of 1974, Seymour Hersh, an investigative reporter working for the New York Times, revealed that the CIA was conducting illegal operations against American citizens without their knowledge or consent. The article prompted a response from the Senate and soon after on January 27th 1975, the Senate voted to establish a special eleven member investigating body (Project). The Committee was given nine months to gather information and was to headed by Senator Frank Church and to have Senator John Tower as second in command (senate). Unfortunately the committee was created to late, following the Watergate scandal the director of the CIA Richard Helms had decided to shut down Project MKUltra and had all associated documents and files destroyed. However, due to accidental oversight, some 20,000 financial documents survived destruction (Project). While the documents were not very helpful, they would still have some important information such as some of the people involved and the amount of money that was spend. More information was later discovered when the Church Committee interviewed people who were involved with Project MKUltra. A report was released in 1977 by the U.S. Senate and showed the finding of Project MKUltra and Senator Ted Kennedy revealed to the United States that the CIA had been testing on unwitting citizens, that the tests involved LSD, and there have been known deaths from the activities( Project).
Well most of the information about Project MKUltra was destroyed, a few well known people are known to have participated in Project MKUltra. The first being Theodore Kaczynski. Kaczynski was a researcher at Harvard University and would later of course go on to become more well-known as the infamous serial killer, the Unabomber (Project). Another famous participant in MKUltra is Ken Kesey. He is the Author of the well known book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey was a volunteer in a research study for LSD being conducted at his local VA hospital. Later he would find out that he had really been a part of Project MKUltra. Finally, Robert Hunter was a volunteer in MKUltra. When hunter was participating in the project he thought it was a harmless research for an innocuous study at Stanford (Project). Overall, America will never know every detail about what the CIA did during Project MKUltra and it will remain a dark part of American history that is surrounded in mystery.
Project MKUltra was not the only time LSD and politics would collide during the 1960’s in the United States.
In 1966, a senate subcommittee hearing was called by Senator Thomas Dodds, a Democrat from Connecticut, to debate the benefits and risks of LSD. The subcommittee was called due to the rapidly increasingly public interest of LSD and because the effects of the chemical were still not clear (hiseng). Thomas Dodd spoke out against the use of LSD and wanted to stop the spread of the drug among America’s youth. Ted Kennedy, a Senator from Massachusetts, was also for the prohibition of LSD and helped Dodds during the interviews and interrogations, including one of the most important testimonies at the hearing, Timothy Leary’s …show more content…
(hiseng).
Timothy Leary was an advocate for the use of LSD and would testify as an expert witness during the hearing. Timothy Leary was an American Psychologist and Harvard Professor during the 1960’s. Leary was also an advocate of LSD and was fired from his Harvard teaching position after the school discovered that he had given students at the school LSD. Leary also started his own religion called the League of Spiritual Discovery in an attempt to help keep LSD legal. In his religion, LSD was to be considered the main sacrament. The religion grew slightly in popularity but most members did not follow Leary and only participated to get access to LSD (Hanson 374). Leary is also the author the “Start your own religion”. Leary went around the country instructing people to start their own religions as well (Hanson 374).
During the hearing, Leary gave testimony for the benefits of LSD.
He argued that “the challenge of the psychedelic chemicals is not just how to control them, but how to use them” (History). Leary also argued that “LSD and many other psychedelic drugs were not dangerous if used wisely and with precautions” (History). During the hearing Leary also presented to the court good ideas for licensing LSD in order for responsible consumption of LSD. He also wanted the license to force users to be highly trained to prevent accidents with the drug. Leary wanted LSD to be used for “serious purposes, such as spiritual growth, pursuit of knowledge, or their own personal development” (History). Leary thought that without a licence system in place, another prohibition would be created and that in turn would create a new group of college-educated white-collar criminals. Overall, Leary was an advocate for LSD and argued for its legislation during the
hearing.
Leary was not the only expert who testified during the hearing with both sides getting support and opposition. The testimonies of both sides showed the differences between cultures with each side disagreeing about the meaning of LSD and how it should be regulated. Just several months after the subcommittee hearings, LSD was banned in California. By October 1968, possession of LSD was banned federally in the United States with the passage of the Staggers-Dodd Bill (hiseng). The Staggers-Dodd Bill was an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This bill made it illegal to possess LSD or other depressant or stimulant drugs without a perscription. This bill is one of the starting point for the War On Drugs campaign that would come about during the 1970’s in the United States. (Franco 32). Overall, LSD has played a large role in the history of American society, especially during the 1960’s. The drug not only helped to create a new culture during the 1960’s but the CIA also used it for many different unethical experiments on American citizens without their knowledge. The drug was also involved in a important hearing that ultimately lead to the drug being declared illegal by the federal government. In the end, LSD was involved in a couple of political events during the 1960’s that has forever changed the future of the drug.
Works Cited
"Dr. Timothy Leary Defends Responsible Use of LSD." History Engine. Juniata College, n.d. Web.
This source was helpful because it gave me information about the hearing where Leary defends LSD. This article was used to gather information about what Leary argued about during the hearing as well as why the history leading to the hearing.
Franco, Celinda. "The Staggers-Dodd Bill of 1968." Federal Domestic Illegal Drug Enforcement Efforts: Are They Working? N.p.: Diane, n.d. 32-33. Print.
This source did not provide much information, however it did provide information about the staggers-dodd bill as well as what the bill actually did and its impact of the future.
Hanson, Glen R. Drugs and Society. N.p.: Jones & Bartlett, 2014. Print. This source was very helpful for information about Leary and his League for Spiritual Development. This source provided me with information about why he stated it and what he wanted to accomplish with it.
Mind Control: America's Secret War. A&E Home Video, 2006. DVD. This was a video that I found and watched about Project MKUltra. The video was made by the History Channel and provided information for most of my Project Mkultra paragraphs. The video also gave me information about what sparked the creation of the project.
"Project MKUltra." Sometimes Interesting. N.p., 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
This article was also very helpful with information about Project MKUltra, this article also provided most of my information about the project. This article also provided information about the church committee.
"Senate Historical Office." 1964: Church Committee Created. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.
This article provided information about why the Church Committee was created. The article also had information about what the committee was and what it hoped to accomplish.
Joseph Archer
The 1960’s: A Global Counter Cultural Movement
Fall 2014
Lysergic acid diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD or acid is a powerful hallucinogenic drug that fascinated a generation of Americans during the 1960’s. LSD was first discovered by Albert Hofmann accidently in 1938 while he was looking for a blood stimulant. In 1943 Hofmann would discover the psychedelic effects of the drug by accidentally consuming some in his lab. While the discovery of LSD was an important event that accidently started a new counter culture, the drug was not popularized until the 1960’s by individuals such as Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey. During this time period, LSD saw an increase in popularity due …show more content…
to its recreational use with the hippies and the counterculture of the time period. As a result of the popularization of LSD in American society, it became a heated political topic in Washington D.C. and was used in secret experiments conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. While LSD is mostly known for its recreational and spiritual hallucinogenic effects, a couple of significant events took place during the 1960’s that would forever change the future of the drug.
One of the most significant events that involved both LSD and politics in the 1960’s is the CIA’s Project MKUltra. This top secret CIA project was created for a couple of reasons. First, during the Korean War captured United States pilots began confusing to crimes they did not commit. The United States responded by telling american citizens the confessions were false and that the pilots had been brainwashed by the enemy (Mind Control). Another reason for the creation of Project MKUltra was the suspicion of a more powerful mind control technique having been developed by the chinese. This suspicion was sparked when american prisoners of war were marched through the chinese province of Manchuria. The prisoners apparently experienced blank periods in their memory. This spread a fear that the prisoners had become hypnotized and were possibly programmed to perform acts of war against the United States. This fear also lead to the concept of a manchurian candidate (Mind Control). Project MKUltra would officially be started in April of 1953 with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb at the head of the project. MKUltra was seen as a priority and was authorized to use 6% of the entire operating budget of the CIA and was to have no guidelines or oversight for how the money was to be spent (Project).
When Project MKUltra was created the objective was clear, to examine methods of controlling and influencing the mind. One of the main reasons this technology was needed was to aid in the extraction of information from resistant subjects during interrogation (Project). However, this was not the only goal. MKUltra was also attempting to find different substances capable of causing paralysis, stimulating the effects of alcohol, increasing paranoia, or even causing damage to the brain (Project). While results were important to the CIA, secrecy was just as important. MKUltra was being conducted during the Cold War and this resulted in a constant fear of being infiltrated by a foreign spy. One technique that the CIA used in an attempt to protect the information was segmented operations. This meant that each operation was separated from the others (Project). This type of structure prevented a single person from understanding the whole project making it difficult for a spy to steal information. Another way the CIA maintained secrecy was while conducting experiments researchers would lie to patients or not tell them what drugs they were being given (Project). While this method is unethical, the CIA felt is necessary to break this code of ethics to protect the secrecy of the project.
In order for the CIA to produce results, they needed to conduct experiments that involved human test subjects. The CIA was able to get some volunteers for the project however, most of the participants did not know at the time they were participating in Project MKUltra. Throughout the project, test subjects from over fourty-four different colleges and universities participated (Project). Other places the CIA was able to get participates from was hospitals and prisons. Some prisoners who were being imprisoned for drug usage where even bribed with more drugs for their participation in the experiments (Mind Control). The experiments run during MKUltra were highly unethical and some were without the consent of the patient, one experiment even had a prisoner take LSD for 174 days straight in order for the CIA to experiment with the prolonged effect of LSD (Project). The CIA did have some issues with the experiments, they feared that the tests were not meeting field conditions because the participants were aware they were taking drugs and that in order to test for field conditions participates could not be told (Mind Control). Operation Midnight Climax is an operation run by the CIA in San Francisco during the 1950’s that fits this type of description. During this operation the CIA hired prostitutes to bring clients back to a set house and slip them LSD in a drink. Then CIA agents would observe from behind a one way mirror (Mind Control). The CIA used this approach in order to protect the secrecy of the project, also not many people were willing to report being drugged by a prostitute to the police. While this is very illegal, the CIA was willing to take a risk in order to run the experiments they felt necessary. Another way the CIA gathered information about the effects of LSD was by creating front companies. These front companies would then pay pharmaceutical companies to conduct experiments for them (Project). Project MKUltra did not only experiment with LSD and many other drugs were used for many different tests.
It is difficult to know the exact number of people who died during Project MKUltra because most of the records were destroyed, but some known deaths have still come from the project. One of the most notable deaths from the project is Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was an army scientist as well as a researcher for the CIA, working in the bio-warfare program (Mind Control). At a CIA retreat Olson and the other agents present were given LSD without their knowledge. This caused Olson to have a bad reaction and after the retreat he began suffering from paranoia and nervous breakdowns. Unfortunately, before Olson could be placed in a mental institution for recovery, he jumped out of a ten story window in his hotel room (Mind Control). While there is not direct proof, some people believe that Olson was persuaded by the CIA to kill himself.
One of the most important figures involved with Project MKUltra was the well known Scottish psychiatrist Donald Cameron. Before being recruited by the CIA, Cameron was experimenting with reprogramming the human psyche, with some of his experiments aimed at erasing a person memory (Project). In order to achieve this reprogramming, Cameron was known to put patients into a drug induced coma for several weeks while playing loops of repetitive noises or sounds. He was also known to have administer electroshock therapy thirty times more than normal power (Project). Some of his other techniques included using sensory deprivation or locking patients in a room with no stimulants for weeks at a time. These experiments would sometimes cause severe damage and some patients started to develop amnesia. In order to increase the secrecy of the experiments and to keep Cameron’s experiments out of United States jurisdiction, the CIA moved Dr. Cameron’s to Canada to finish his experiments (Project). Cameron was never able to finish his work however, while out on a hiking trip Dr. Cameron has an accident and dies in 1967, in the middle of his Project MK Ultra experiments. It is also said that Cameron’s family destroyed the records of his experiments (Project). While this death is not as suspicious as with the death of Dr. Olson, there is still suspicion among some people about Cameron’s death and the destruction of all of the records.
In December of 1974, Seymour Hersh, an investigative reporter working for the New York Times, revealed that the CIA was conducting illegal operations against American citizens without their knowledge or consent. The article prompted a response from the Senate and soon after on January 27th 1975, the Senate voted to establish a special eleven member investigating body (Project). The Committee was given nine months to gather information and was to headed by Senator Frank Church and to have Senator John Tower as second in command (senate). Unfortunately the committee was created to late, following the Watergate scandal the director of the CIA Richard Helms had decided to shut down Project MKUltra and had all associated documents and files destroyed. However, due to accidental oversight, some 20,000 financial documents survived destruction (Project). While the documents were not very helpful, they would still have some important information such as some of the people involved and the amount of money that was spend. More information was later discovered when the Church Committee interviewed people who were involved with Project MKUltra. A report was released in 1977 by the U.S. Senate and showed the finding of Project MKUltra and Senator Ted Kennedy revealed to the United States that the CIA had been testing on unwitting citizens, that the tests involved LSD, and there have been known deaths from the activities( Project).
Well most of the information about Project MKUltra was destroyed, a few well known people are known to have participated in Project MKUltra. The first being Theodore Kaczynski. Kaczynski was a researcher at Harvard University and would later of course go on to become more well-known as the infamous serial killer, the Unabomber (Project). Another famous participant in MKUltra is Ken Kesey. He is the Author of the well known book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey was a volunteer in a research study for LSD being conducted at his local VA hospital. Later he would find out that he had really been a part of Project MKUltra. Finally, Robert Hunter was a volunteer in MKUltra. When hunter was participating in the project he thought it was a harmless research for an innocuous study at Stanford (Project). Overall, America will never know every detail about what the CIA did during Project MKUltra and it will remain a dark part of American history that is surrounded in mystery.
Project MKUltra was not the only time LSD and politics would collide during the 1960’s in the United States.
In 1966, a senate subcommittee hearing was called by Senator Thomas Dodds, a Democrat from Connecticut, to debate the benefits and risks of LSD. The subcommittee was called due to the rapidly increasingly public interest of LSD and because the effects of the chemical were still not clear (hiseng). Thomas Dodd spoke out against the use of LSD and wanted to stop the spread of the drug among America’s youth. Ted Kennedy, a Senator from Massachusetts, was also for the prohibition of LSD and helped Dodds during the interviews and interrogations, including one of the most important testimonies at the hearing, Timothy Leary’s …show more content…
(hiseng).
Timothy Leary was an advocate for the use of LSD and would testify as an expert witness during the hearing. Timothy Leary was an American Psychologist and Harvard Professor during the 1960’s. Leary was also an advocate of LSD and was fired from his Harvard teaching position after the school discovered that he had given students at the school LSD. Leary also started his own religion called the League of Spiritual Discovery in an attempt to help keep LSD legal. In his religion, LSD was to be considered the main sacrament. The religion grew slightly in popularity but most members did not follow Leary and only participated to get access to LSD (Hanson 374). Leary is also the author the “Start your own religion”. Leary went around the country instructing people to start their own religions as well (Hanson 374).
During the hearing, Leary gave testimony for the benefits of LSD.
He argued that “the challenge of the psychedelic chemicals is not just how to control them, but how to use them” (History). Leary also argued that “LSD and many other psychedelic drugs were not dangerous if used wisely and with precautions” (History). During the hearing Leary also presented to the court good ideas for licensing LSD in order for responsible consumption of LSD. He also wanted the license to force users to be highly trained to prevent accidents with the drug. Leary wanted LSD to be used for “serious purposes, such as spiritual growth, pursuit of knowledge, or their own personal development” (History). Leary thought that without a licence system in place, another prohibition would be created and that in turn would create a new group of college-educated white-collar criminals. Overall, Leary was an advocate for LSD and argued for its legislation during the
hearing.
Leary was not the only expert who testified during the hearing with both sides getting support and opposition. The testimonies of both sides showed the differences between cultures with each side disagreeing about the meaning of LSD and how it should be regulated. Just several months after the subcommittee hearings, LSD was banned in California. By October 1968, possession of LSD was banned federally in the United States with the passage of the Staggers-Dodd Bill (hiseng). The Staggers-Dodd Bill was an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. This bill made it illegal to possess LSD or other depressant or stimulant drugs without a perscription. This bill is one of the starting point for the War On Drugs campaign that would come about during the 1970’s in the United States. (Franco 32). Overall, LSD has played a large role in the history of American society, especially during the 1960’s. The drug not only helped to create a new culture during the 1960’s but the CIA also used it for many different unethical experiments on American citizens without their knowledge. The drug was also involved in a important hearing that ultimately lead to the drug being declared illegal by the federal government. In the end, LSD was involved in a couple of political events during the 1960’s that has forever changed the future of the drug.
Works Cited
"Dr. Timothy Leary Defends Responsible Use of LSD." History Engine. Juniata College, n.d. Web.
This source was helpful because it gave me information about the hearing where Leary defends LSD. This article was used to gather information about what Leary argued about during the hearing as well as why the history leading to the hearing.
Franco, Celinda. "The Staggers-Dodd Bill of 1968." Federal Domestic Illegal Drug Enforcement Efforts: Are They Working? N.p.: Diane, n.d. 32-33. Print.
This source did not provide much information, however it did provide information about the staggers-dodd bill as well as what the bill actually did and its impact of the future.
Hanson, Glen R. Drugs and Society. N.p.: Jones & Bartlett, 2014. Print. This source was very helpful for information about Leary and his League for Spiritual Development. This source provided me with information about why he stated it and what he wanted to accomplish with it.
Mind Control: America's Secret War. A&E Home Video, 2006. DVD. This was a video that I found and watched about Project MKUltra. The video was made by the History Channel and provided information for most of my Project Mkultra paragraphs. The video also gave me information about what sparked the creation of the project.
"Project MKUltra." Sometimes Interesting. N.p., 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.
This article was also very helpful with information about Project MKUltra, this article also provided most of my information about the project. This article also provided information about the church committee.
"Senate Historical Office." 1964: Church Committee Created. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.
This article provided information about why the Church Committee was created. The article also had information about what the committee was and what it hoped to accomplish.