Luna Accuses CIA Of Committing Crimes Against The American Citizens At MKUltra Hearing

[0:00] This hearing from the Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets will come to order. [0:04] Welcome everyone. [0:06] Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any time. [0:09] I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement. [0:14] This hearing is about the crimes committed by the Central Intelligence Agency against [0:18] the American citizens and the decades of secrecy used to conceal them. [0:22] The American people deserve a complete and truthful record. [0:25] The victims and their families deserve acknowledgment, and this Congress has a constitutional obligation [0:31] to ensure that full declassification is not delayed any longer. [0:36] Project MKUltra was not a policy failure or an overzealous program that got out of hand. [0:40] It was a deliberate, systematic governmental operation that subjected American citizens, [0:46] prisoners, hospital patients, veterans, ordinary people to LSD, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory [0:52] deprivation, psychological torture without their knowledge or consent. [0:56] This went on for 20 years on American soil, funded by American taxpayer dollars and authorized [1:01] by the very top of U.S. intelligence apparatus. [1:04] And this program, when it did end, the men who ran it did not cooperate with investigators. [1:09] They did not come forward. [1:11] They committed another crime. [1:12] They destroyed evidence. [1:14] The documents this task force has reviewed are unambiguous. [1:18] In January 1973, the Director of the CIA, Richard Helms, prepared to leave office. [1:23] He personally ordered the destruction of MKUltra records. [1:26] The CIA official document in writing states, over my stated objectives, the MKUltra files [1:33] were destroyed by the order of DCI Mr. Helms shortly before his departure from office. [1:39] A separate internal account confirms that Helms telephoned Dr. Gottlieb directly and instructed [1:44] him to destroy, quote, all files pertaining to drug research and associated activities. [1:49] Gottlieb completed or compiled four people, spent an entire day tearing, burning down 152 files. [1:54] Then Gottlieb had his personal papers destroyed by his secretary before he retired. [2:02] The head of the CIA-owned records center protested the destruction in writing, but he was overruled. [2:08] That is obstruction of justice. [2:10] That is criminal destruction of federal records. [2:13] And neither individuals were ever charged with a crime for it. [2:16] Helms received a $2,000 fine for lying to Congress about an unrelated manner and collected [2:21] his government pension until he died. [2:24] He retired in rural Virginia and wrote poetry. [2:27] No one went to prison. [2:29] No victim was ever formally compensated by the government for the harm that they caused. [2:34] By 1975, the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission had already established through [2:39] sworn testimony and the surviving 1963 Inspector General report that MKUltra existed and that [2:44] the CIA had run a program of human experimentation on unwitting Americans. [2:49] The scope and detail of what we know today is largely because of an accident. [2:54] In 1977, an archivist, diligently complying with a FOIA request, discovered seven boxes [3:00] of MKUltra financial records that had been misfiled and escaped the bonfire. [3:06] Those seven boxes included the names of institutions, the names of subprojects, the researchers who [3:12] participated, the specific operation that the CIA had funded, and without them, the vast [3:18] majority of MKUltra would only be a rumor just as Helms and Gottlieb intended. [3:23] Those seven boxes revealed that MKUltra comprised at least 149 subprojects, operated across [3:29] more than 80 institutions, and involved 185 non-government researchers. [3:36] They revealed that the CIA covertly contributed $375,000 to a hospital research wing, which [3:42] was approved directly by DCI Allen Dulles, which Richard Helms concurred, so the agency could [3:49] use unwitting patients as experimental subjects in what their own documents called a hospital [3:54] safe house. [3:56] The CIA-owned inspector general said in 1963 his classified report concluded that the [4:00] program had exceeded the agency's legal chapter, and covert testing on unwitting subjects placed [4:06] the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in jeopardy. [4:09] The program ran for a decade that we know of, and they ignored their own watchdog. [4:15] Let me be clear what I believe that we are dealing with here. [4:19] Administering drugs to people without their knowledge or consent, subjecting humans to psychological [4:23] torture and using prisoners and hospital patients as non-consenting research subjects. [4:28] These are crimes against humanity. [4:31] The Central Intelligence Agency committed them, and then the director of the CIA was ordering [4:37] the destruction of evidence. [4:39] Today, we will hear from two witnesses who have spent years unraveling the cover-up that [4:43] our government ordered. [4:45] Stephen Kinzer documented the life and crimes of Sidney Gottlieb in his book Prisoner of Chief, [4:50] and Tom O'Neill spent over 20 years investigating what the CIA buried and what they obscured that, [4:58] in my mind, constitute some of the worst notorious crimes against humanity in the 20th century. [5:03] Their persistence in the research in this hearing is possible simply because they are patriots. [5:09] The American people deserve the complete record. [5:11] The victims and their families deserve acknowledgment, accountability, and justice. [5:15] And this Congress has a constitutional obligation to make sure that the CIA never does this again. [5:21] With that, I'm going to be opening up first questions, and I'll hold my questions to the [5:25] end, to Representative Burleson. [5:27] But before I do pass it, I did want to just note, a few weeks ago, we did receive reports. [5:33] There were some back and forth regarding the CIA and ODNI pertaining to new MKUltra boxes [5:38] that were discovered. [5:40] Myself and Representative Burleson did go down to Langley. [5:43] We did meet with the CIA, and the CIA is currently in the process of declassifying newly found [5:49] documentation, although the documents, and I feel comfortable enough to share here, pertain [5:55] specifically to a forgery program that was being housed under MKUltra. [6:00] So as soon as those files are released, we will be putting out notification with your help [6:04] to also comb through some of the newly released documents, but I did want to give you a quick [6:07] update. [6:09] Without further ado, I would like to represent representative, or I would like to now recognize [6:14] Representative Eric Burleson for his questions. [6:20] Go ahead. [6:21] Without objection, Representative Perry and Representative Higgins from Pennsylvania and Louisiana is [6:26] waved on to the committee for the purpose of questioning the witnesses at today's subcommittee [6:30] hearing. [6:33] I need the opening statement. [6:35] And I'd like to now recognize Dr. Kinzer and the witnesses for the opening statements. [6:38] Stephen Kinzer is a historian, journalist, and author of Poisoner and Chief.