Lawmakers Probe CIA's MKUltra And 'Mind Control' In House Oversight Committee

[19:58] this hearing from the task force on declassification of federal secrets will come to order [20:03] welcome everyone without objection the chair may declare a recess at any time [20:08] i recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement this hearing is about the crimes [20:15] committed by the central intelligence agency against the american citizens and the decades [20:19] of secrecy used to conceal them the american people deserve a complete and truthful record [20:25] victims and their families deserve acknowledgement and this congress has a constitutional obligation [20:30] to ensure that full declassification is not delayed any longer project mk ultra was not a policy [20:36] failure or an overzealous program that got out of hand it was a deliberate systematic governmental [20:42] operation that subjected american citizens prisoners hospital patients veterans ordinary people [20:48] to lsd electroshock hypnosis sensory deprivation psychological torture without their knowledge [20:54] or consent this went on for 20 years on american soil funded by american taxpayer dollars and [20:59] authorized by the very top of u.s intelligence apparatus and this program when it did end the [21:06] men who ran it did not cooperate with investigators they did not come forward they committed another [21:10] crime they destroyed evidence the documents this task force has reviewed are unambiguous in january 1973 [21:19] the director of the cia richard helms prepared to leave office he personally ordered the destruction of [21:24] mk ultra records the cia official document in writing states over my stated objectives the mk ultra files [21:33] were destroyed by the order of dci mr helms shortly before his departure from office a separate internal [21:39] account confirms that helms telephoned dr gottlieb directly and instructed him to destroy [21:44] quote all files pertaining to drug research and associated activities gottlieb completed or complied [21:50] compiled four people spent an entire day tearing burning down 152 files then gottlieb had his [21:57] personal papers destroyed by his secretary before he retired the head of the cia owned records center [22:03] protested the destruction in writing but he was overruled that is obstruction of justice that is [22:10] criminal destruction of federal records and neither individuals were ever charged with a crime for [22:15] it helms received a two thousand dollar fine for lying to congress about an unrelated manner and collected [22:20] his government pension until he died gottlieb retired in rural virginia and wrote poetry no one [22:27] went to prison no victim was ever formally compensated by the government for the harm that they caused [22:33] by 1975 the church committee and the rockefeller commission had already established through sworn [22:38] testimony and the surviving 1963 inspector general port the mk ultra existed and that the cia had run a [22:45] program of human experimentation on unwitting americans the scope and detail of what we know today is [22:51] largely because of an accident in 1977 an archivist diligently complying with a foyer request discovered [22:59] seven boxes of mk ultra financial records that had been misfiled and escaped the bonfire those seven boxes [23:07] included the names of institutions the name of sub projects the researchers who participate who [23:13] participated the specific operation that the cia had funded and without them the vast majority of mk ultra [23:19] would only be a rumor just as helms and gottlieb intended those seven boxes revealed the mk ultra [23:25] comprised at least 149 sub projects operated across more than 80 institutions and involved 185 non-government [23:33] researchers they revealed that the cia covertly contributed 375 000 to a hospital research wing [23:41] which was approved directly by dci allen doles which richard helms um concurrence so the agency could use [23:48] unwitting patients as experimental subjects in what their own documents called a hospital safe house [23:54] the cia owns inspector general said in 1963 his classified report concluded that the program had [24:00] exceeded the agency's legal chapter and covert testing on unwitting subjects placed the rights and [24:05] interests of u.s citizens in jeopardy the program ran for a decade that we know of and they ignored [24:12] ignored their own watchdog let me be clear what i believe that we are dealing with here administering drugs [24:19] to people without their knowledge or consent subjecting humans to psychological torture and using [24:23] prisoners and hospital patients as non-consenting research subjects these are crimes against humanity [24:30] the central intelligence agency committed them and then the director of the cia was ordered [24:35] or was ordering the destruction of evidence today we will hear from two witnesses who have spent years [24:41] unraveling the cover-up that our government ordered stephen kinzer documented the life and crimes of [24:46] sydney gotley in his book prisoner of chief and tom o'neill spent over 20 years investigating what the [24:52] cia buried and what they obscured that in my mind constitute some of the worst notorious crimes against [25:00] humanity in the 20th century their persistence in the research in this hearing is possible simply [25:05] because they are patriots the american people deserve the complete record the victims and their families [25:11] deserve acknowledgement accountability and justice and this congress has a constitutional obligation to make [25:17] sure that the cia never does this again with that i'm going to be opening up first questions and i'll hold [25:23] my questions to the end to representative burleson but before i do pass it i did want to just note a few [25:29] weeks ago we did receive reports there's some back and forth regarding the cia and odni pertaining to [25:36] new mk ultra boxes that were discovered myself and representative burleson did go down to langley we did [25:42] wheat with the cia and the cia is currently in the process of declassifying newly found documentation [25:49] although the documents and i feel comfortable enough to share here pertain specifically to a forgery [25:56] program that was being housed under mk ultra so as soon as those files are released we will be putting [26:02] out notification with your help to also comb through some of the newly released documents but i did want [26:06] to give you a quick update um without further ado i would like to represent representative or i would like [26:12] to now recognize representative eric burleson for his questions go ahead um without objection [26:20] representative perry and representative higgins from louisiana uh pennsylvania and louisiana [26:25] is waved on to the committee for the purpose of questioning the witnesses at today's subcommittee hearing [26:34] and i'd like to now recognize dr kinzer and the witnesses for the opening statements i just [26:38] swear them yeah stephen kinzer is a historian journalist and author of poisoner in chief [26:47] sydney gottlieb and the cia's search for mind control um tom o'neill is an investigative journalist [26:52] who authored chaos charles manson the cia and the secret history of the 60s and elizabeth [26:58] ginexi did i say that right ma'am ginexi is an independent consultant and former senior program [27:04] officer at the national institute of health we look forward to hearing what you have to say today on [27:09] this important subject pursuant to committee rules 9g the witnesses will please stand and raise their [27:15] white hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you're about to give is the truth [27:26] the whole truth and the nothing nothing but the truth so help you god let the record show that the [27:31] witnesses answered in the affirmative thank you you may now take your seat we appreciate you being here [27:37] today let me remind the witnesses that we have read your opening statements and it will appear in [27:42] full record in the uh in full in the hearing record please limit your oral statements to five minutes [27:47] however if it does go over we will not be gobbling you out as a reminder please press the button on [27:52] the microphone in front of you so that it is illuminated and members can hear you when you [27:56] begin to speak the light in front of you again will turn green after four minutes the light will turn [28:00] yellow and the red when the red light comes on that means that your five minutes has expired and we [28:04] will ask you to please wrap it up i would now like to recognize steven kinzer for his opening statement [28:11] thank you very much madam chairman uh let me begin by expressing my gratitude to this task force for [28:16] confronting the enormous issue of over classification of government documents and the culture of [28:23] secrecy that enables it i'm especially gratified by your interest in mk ultra the project the cia [28:30] carried out through the 1950s in an attempt to find the secret of mind control mk ultra was one of the [28:37] most secret government programs in american history the chemist who directed it sydney gottlieb lived in total [28:45] anonymity my book poisoner in chief may be the most complete account of mk ultra that exists in public [28:53] but i'm painfully aware that i have discovered only a small portion of what mk ultra was and what sydney [29:01] gottlieb did in 1951 the cia hired gottlieb and directed him to launch what became mk ultra gottlieb believed [29:10] that in order to find a way to implant a new mind into someone's brain you first had to find a way to [29:19] destroy the mind that was in there already in its search for ways to destroy a human mind and body mk [29:27] ultra conducted the most extreme experiments on human beings that have ever been carried out by a [29:34] u.s government agency by any standard they qualify as medical torture these experiments took place in [29:42] prisons clinics and safe houses in the united states in europe in asia and even in latin america [29:50] officers of mk ultra were authorized to travel to foreign countries preferably those under formal or [29:56] informal u.s occupation and ask the local cia station to provide them with expendables human beings who [30:06] would not be missed if they disappeared gottlieb had what amounted to a license to kill issued by [30:14] the u.s government neither the number of mk ultra victims nor the number of those who were experimented [30:24] to death is known gottlieb as a result of this license to kill might have been the most powerful [30:33] unknown american of the 20th century some information about mk ultra spilled out during the 1970s but senior [30:42] cia officers had intentionally let gottlieb operate without supervision so they were able to claim that [30:49] they knew nothing about his excesses this was a way for the cia to deny its institutional role in mk ultra [30:57] and to portray it misleadingly as the product of one man's sadism or excessive zeal investigating mk [31:07] ultra is challenging because when gottlieb and his mentor richard helms left the cia in 1973 they [31:12] illegally ordered that its records be destroyed soon afterwards under dci stansfield turner a cia [31:19] analyst as you pointed out madam chairman discovered a catch of mk ultra documents hidden [31:24] among financial records turner credited that analyst with doing a very diligent job of sherlock holmzing [31:35] that same diligence i believe could bring results today one of the great mysteries of mk ultra has to [31:42] do with the death in 1953 of an mk ultra scientist frank olson who had announced his intention to quit the [31:49] project his plunge from a new york hotel uh room was described in the press as the suicide of an army [31:57] scientist he was not an army scientist he worked for the cia and evidence suggests that his death may [32:04] not have been a suicide so there could be hidden documents that could illuminate this case i would [32:11] also point out that in addition to searching for unknown documents this committee could do a tremendous [32:18] service by simply asking for the end of redactions on the documents that we now have there are reams [32:26] of documents about mk ultra that have heavy sections redacted in the 1970s this was justified [32:33] by the argument that had only been 20 years since these terrible things had happened and revealing [32:37] details might affect national security now 70 years have passed that argument can no longer be valid [32:44] so i would urge this committee to try to fill out all the blank spaces in the documents that we have [32:51] because we know that is there this task force could also consider trying to determine whether some new [32:59] incarnation of mk ultra exists today when the main phase of mk ultra drew to a close in the early 1960s [33:07] sydney gottlieb concluded that it had failed uh that in fact there is no such thing as mind control [33:16] even if he was right however he may have been right only at that time in the many decades since then [33:25] there have been enormous advanced advances in cyber technology in artificial intelligence in [33:31] neuroscience covert agencies may have access now to tools for mind control that sydney gottlieb could [33:38] not even have imagined it may well have been true in 1963 that mind control is a myth but whether it's [33:48] still true is uncertain uh and that question of whether mind control might now be possible under [33:58] our new circumstances is something that has presumably occurred to scientists who work for secret [34:05] services including our own this task force has a chance to connect the past to the future a renewed [34:14] effort to find mk ultra documents from the 1950s and to fill out the redactions of those that have been [34:21] released might shed new light on how the cia operated during that period it could also inform a new [34:28] inquiry into whether any mind control projects are now underway inside the u.s security apparatus that [34:35] might help prevent the emergence of a 21st century mk ultra that could be even more destructive than the [34:41] original thank you thank you very much dr kinzer um i now recognize tom o'neill for his opening statement [34:50] oh sorry should i start over thank you chairwoman luna and members of the committee it's a privilege to [35:09] be here today almost 50 years ago the last congressional hearings into mk ultra took place just a short walk [35:16] from here in the dirkskin senate office building at those hearings convened in august and september of 1977 [35:24] representatives of the cia told congress and the american people that its 25-year effort to control human [35:30] behavior had been a colossal failure because i believe congress was never told the truth about [35:39] what this program actually achieved in fact i believe the agency misled congress in 1977 [35:45] when it characterized mk ultra as a failure my name is tom o'neill and in 1999 i was accepted i accepted [35:53] a magazine assignment to write a story about murders committed by a group of hippies called the manson family [35:59] for those unfamiliar with this horrific episode of american history in the summer of 1969 four young [36:06] people acting on the orders of a cult leader named charles manson went to the home of movie director [36:12] roman polanski and murdered everyone they found there including his eight and a half month pregnant [36:17] wife the actress sharon tate the victims were complete strangers to the to their killers the following [36:25] night manson's followers murdered another couple in the same grizzly fan fashion at the time i accepted [36:32] the assignment i'd never heard of mk ultra and i wouldn't for another two years after i'd missed [36:38] countless deadlines lost the assignment and fall fallen down a nightmarish rabbit hole trying to answer [36:44] the question i couldn't quite shake how had manson a barely literate ex-con acquired the ability to [36:52] persuade ordinary young people to murder complete strangers simply because he had told them to the [36:59] pursuit of that answer the pursuit of the answer to that question led me to dr lewis joley and west [37:05] known to his friends as jolly west was one of the most influential psychiatrists in america during his [37:13] career he crossed paths with some of the most controversial events of the 20th century including the patty [37:18] hearse kidnapping case and the aftermath of the john f kennedy assassination investigation in 1977 [37:26] west was one of seven academic researchers named in a front page new york times story alleging that the [37:33] cia had used american universities hospitals and prisons as secret laboratories for experiments involving lsd [37:41] and other drugs on unwitting human subjects west vigorously denied the allegations he acknowledged [37:48] that the agency had approached him but insisted he had refused because he said lsd was too dangerous [37:54] and unpredictable to be used on humans he added that he limited all of his research with lsd to animals [38:02] the revelations in the times led directly to the congressional hearings held later that year west denials [38:09] however were effective he was never investigated and his name never came up at the hearings i'll spare you [38:16] the long and tedious story of how my manson reporting led to west led me to west except to say that i [38:22] eventually learned that in 1967 when manson transformed into the cult leader we are familiar with today [38:30] he and his followers were receiving free medical clear care at a clinic in san francisco where west had [38:37] established a base of operations for a research project he was conducting nearby after becoming intrigued by [38:44] the allegations against west i learned that ucla his last academic home had inherited his paper [38:51] following his death in 1999 nearly two months and more than 200 boxes later i found the proverbial needle [38:59] in a haystack correspondence between west and dr sydney gottlieb the architect of mk ultra the letters [39:08] begin in 1953 just two months after cia director alan dulles authorized the program and while west was [39:16] stationed at the lachlan air force base in san antonio texas where he was chief chief psychiatrist [39:21] at the base hospital in his first letter to gottlieb west proposed conducting experiments on unwitting [39:28] human subjects including military personnel prisoners and psychiatric patients at the base hospital [39:35] he then outlined the experiments themselves and six more pages that could have been written by joseph [39:41] mengele using lsd in combination with hypnosis west produce inducing confusion amnesia and specific [39:49] mental disorders and people who would remember nothing of their interaction with him afterward he sought to [39:56] develop techniques to extract true information and implant false information and unwilling subjects and to [40:03] alter the attitudes and beliefs of quote previously loyal individuals in other words to completely switch [40:10] their allegiance from one group or leader to another but it was that sentence but it was another [40:16] sentence at the end of that letter that stopped me cold these experiments he wrote must eventually be [40:22] put to test in practical trials in the field gottlieb's response could hardly have been more enthusiastic [40:30] my good friend he wrote i had been wondering whether your apparent rapid and comprehensive grasp of our [40:35] problems could possibly be real you have indeed developed an admirably accurate picture of [40:40] exactly what we are after west replied that there was no more vital undertaking conceivable in these [40:47] times there was another document in west papers that had even more significant implications it was a 14 [40:54] page report that west wrote in 1956 just three years after he contracted with the cia in the report west [41:03] described administering lsd and other drugs in conjunction with hypnosis on unwitting human subjects [41:10] and then he made a remarkable claim he announced that he had learned how to replace true memories with [41:16] false memories and people without their knowledge in other words he clarified it has been found to be [41:23] feasible to take the memory of a definite event in the life of an individual and through hypnotic [41:29] suggestion bring about the subsequent conscious recall to the effect that this event never actually took [41:35] place but that a different fictional event actually did occur if west report was accurate this was not [41:44] the failure agency officials described in 1977 quite the opposite it was in fact the central ambition [41:52] of the mk ultra operation the means of gaining the ability to seize the control of a person's perceptions [41:59] memories and ultimately their behavior but there was still one more discovery and this time i found it [42:06] in the national security archives at george washington university the official repository of the cia's mk ultra [42:13] records which were released to congress after the 1977 hearings in those holdings was a different [42:20] versions of west 1956 report the original paper had been replaced by a four-page summary that did not [42:28] exist in west files and appears to have been written by someone else his claims about replacing memories [42:34] were gone in their place was a theoretical discussion of lsd and disassociative states the versions applied [42:42] to congress concluded that the effects of lsd and similar drugs on disassociative disassociative states [42:50] had and i'm quoting never been studied never been studied in the original report west discusses observations [43:00] from his own experiments including detailed descriptions of using lsd to as he wrote speed the induction of [43:07] the hypnotic state and deepen the trance in subjects those passages have been removed in the report turned [43:14] over to congress the discrepancy could not have been more stark nearly 50 years ago another congressional [43:26] committee believed that had been given the truth about mk ultra it had not in conclusion i respectfully [43:33] submit that these records some newly available and others that remained outside the government's [43:38] disclosure for decades weren't a thorough re-examination of what the program accomplished what congress was [43:45] told and what may still remain hidden i'm happy to provide the documents i've referenced today and i've [43:52] provided many additional details in my written testimony thank you mr o'neill i now recognize elizabeth [43:59] jenakzi for her opening statement chairman luna and distinguished members of the committee thank you [44:08] for the opportunity to testify today i'm a health research scientist with a master's and doctoral degrees [44:14] in psychology from the george walter university i spent 22 years from 2003 to 2025 as a scientific program [44:23] official at the national institutes of health managing more than 132 million dollars in health research [44:30] grants and co-authoring 18 federal funding programs i left the nih in april of 2025 i'm here today [44:38] because what is happening to nih right now is not reform it is the replacement of scientific judgment [44:45] with political control for 80 years u.s federal investment in biomedical research produced outcomes that [44:53] no private market would have funded heart disease is the leading cause of death in the united states [44:59] nih-funded research on blood pressure cholesterol and smoking drove a 56 percent decline in heart disease [45:08] between 1950 and 1996 cancer has been transformed treatments for breast lung prostate and childhood cancers [45:19] along with immunotherapies that converted previously fatal diagnoses into manageable conditions traced directly [45:26] to nih-funded research hiv aids were a death in death sentence in 1981 no pharmaceutical company saw a [45:36] profitable market for treatments nih ran the trials that no one else would run the result was anti-retroviral [45:44] therapy and pre-exposure prophylaxis global aids deaths have fallen 80 54 percent since 2010 rare diseases that [45:56] affect 30 million americans get studied at the nih because no market will fund that research every dollar [46:03] that's appropriated to the national institutes of health generates 2.46 in economic output nih-supported [46:12] work contributed to 354 of the 356 new drugs that the fda approved between 2010 and 2019 cutting the funding [46:22] source of that pipeline does not slow it it ends it the proposed omb federal financial assistance rule [46:31] would give political appointees authority to terminate funded grants at any time without cause [46:39] including ongoing clinical trials with enrolled patients this is not a hypothetical nih has already [46:47] terminated or frozen thousands of grants including hundreds of ongoing clinical trials since january [46:54] 2025 concentrated in infectious disease vaccine and health disparities research this proposed rule [47:02] will make that authority permanent the nih director has eliminated the merit score thresholds that once [47:09] protected peer review and political appointees are right now overriding peer review outcomes to screen [47:17] grants for alignment with administrative priorities the proposed omb rule will also severely restrict [47:25] international research we're managing an h5n1 blue bird flu outbreak that has more than 70 documented human [47:34] cases we recently concluded a hantavirus response that required cdc scientists working alongside argentine [47:43] counterparts the current ebola outbreak in the democratic republic of congo is now the third largest on record [47:51] and is outpacing containment efforts this rule will curtail exactly that kind of cooperation that we need [48:00] nih lost 111 12 phd trained workers from 2025 to early 26 more than half of the nih institutes right now are [48:13] operating without permanent scientific leadership the majority of its advisory councils required by statute to [48:20] provide independent oversight have lost more than half of their members the fundamental choice before this congress [48:29] is between a system where scientists make scientific judgments through accountable processes [48:37] and one where political appointees make those calls instead that choice will determine whether the next [48:45] breakthroughs in cancer alzheimer's antibiotic resistance and pandemic defense will happen here [48:53] somewhere else or perhaps not at all i urge this committee to support a joint resolution of disapproval to block the [49:02] proposed omb financial assistance rule that authority to replace peer review with political approval has not been granted by [49:11] congress should not your time's expired i'll be now going to myself thank you very much questioning thank [49:16] you ma'am um my first question is for mr o'neil mk naomi the joint cia army program that ran parallel with mk [49:25] ultra at fort dietrich appears to have been run with deliberate minimal documentation um army records on [49:31] special operations division have apparently been destroyed in your investigation what did you learn about mk [49:37] naomi and do you believe its activities were even more serious than what we know about mk ultra i'm [49:49] sorry i didn't learn anything about those operations i kept my focus mostly on dr west and his work i do know that [49:58] the only reason i found the documents i found was because dr west accidentally left them in his papers and he [50:06] probably did that because he corresponded with gottlieb under gottlieb's assigned alias which was sherman [50:13] grifford and he addressed all his mail to a post office box here under a false corporation thank [50:21] you mr i'm just going to real quick go to dr kinzer are you aware of anything that exists with mk and [50:25] naomi in your research and if you could please press the button my understanding my understanding of mk [50:32] naomi is that it was a joint project between the military and the cia and there's a big difference [50:38] because the mk ultra project was aimed at seizing control of the minds of individuals the army was [50:46] interested in something different which was trying to use biological agents in warfare against entire [50:51] populations so mk naomi is the place where these two goals overlapped um and that was um the 1953 [51:01] frank olson death was that in a way tied to that from some chatter that we had seen in exactly what the [51:09] motivation was behind the decision about frank olson if there was such a decision is unknown my next [51:16] question is also for you sir operation paperclip brought over 1600 german scientists into the united [51:21] states government after world war ii including individuals who had conducted human experimentation [51:26] and concentration camps the cia military were aware of their backgrounds and recruited them anyways [51:31] in your research did you find direct documentation between paperclip scientists and the development of [51:36] mk culture experimental protocols specifically the use of mescaline hypnosis and sensory deprivation [51:42] which were techniques also documented at dachau absolutely kurt bloma who was the chief of [51:50] biological weapons development for the nazi government came to work for the cia so did walter schreiber who [51:57] was the surgeon general of the nazi army i can just tell a brief story when i was researching my book i found [52:05] what i think might be the first secret cia prison or black site it's a nice chalet in germany and the guy [52:12] who now owns it took me into the basement he said these were the cells where the mk ultra officers working [52:21] side by side with nazis uh carried out those gruesome experiments which were actually just continuations [52:30] of the experiments that those nazis had been conducting just a few years earlier right down [52:35] the road just for timeline and clarification these experiments were happening after the nuremberg [52:39] trials correct so the cia would have known that these were crimes against humanity i looked for an [52:45] episode in which the nuremberg doctrines were posted on the wall in some mk ultra or cia office and i [52:51] was never able to find any indication that those nuremberg principles ever were even consulted much less [52:58] obeyed thank you my next question would be for either witness to comment dr kinzer mr o'neil [53:06] both witnesses have written about the site psychiatrist lewis jolly west sydney gottlieb [53:11] who ran mk ultra program for the cia hired west as a contractor to conduct research for [53:16] subproject 43 combining hypnotism drugs and sensory deprivation to create disassociative states [53:22] in which to quote mr kinzer in his book poisoner in chief the human mind could be pulled away from its [53:26] moorings following the assassination of president john f kennedy west psychiatrically examined jack [53:31] ruby then in prison for murdering the president accused of the assassination lee harvey oswald lee [53:38] the assassin accused of murdering president kennedy lee harvey oswald a report emerged from west [53:43] examination said that ruby had suffered a acute psychotic break can you explain why dr west in [53:49] particular was chosen to conduct an examination of jack ruby alone in his jail cell with no other [53:55] psychologist president president at present be happy to uh west inserted himself into the case when ruby [54:04] was the day of the shooting the day after the shooting rest approached the judge in the preliminary [54:11] hearings and asked to be uh assigned to the case he was refused by the judge after ruby was convicted at [54:18] his first trial uh an associate of west uh dr hubert winston smith who was a psychiatrist and an attorney took over [54:26] ruby's defense for his appeal and he had already discussed uh appointing ruby to the case or excuse [54:33] me west to the case uh and as you said west examined ruby alone at the jail cell and emerged [54:41] to announce it in the preceding 48 hours he had had a psych acute psychotic break from which he would never recover [54:48] he had been declared a competent to stand trial in his the first time by a panel of i think eight psychiatrists [54:56] this psychotic break lasted until his death in 1967 two months after uh west examined him ruby testified [55:05] for the first time and only time to the warring commission it was the first time he ever publicly [55:11] was supposed to say what his reasons were for shooting oswald the uh testimony had to be halted [55:17] because he was babbling incoherently and as all inspector who was a counsel to the commission wrote in [55:23] his memoirs he pulled him aside and said that they were cutting off the arms and legs of children [55:29] in albuquerque and el paso and he said he was making no sense whatsoever west in his letters to [55:37] gotley from 1953 discussed experiments where he would induce specific mental disorders in people without [55:45] their awareness a year before the kennedy assassination he publicly spoke in oklahoma city and talked about [55:54] his lsd experiments inducing psychiatric breaks and psychosis in people with the use of lsd with [56:02] of course later contradicted what he told the new york times when he said he never used lsd in animal [56:08] experimentation what an interesting connection um i have i'm out of time but i'll be now recognizing [56:12] mr burleson from missouri for five minutes thank you madam chair thank you for your diligent work [56:19] on this and um hopefully we will hear back from the cia on those those boxes of documents that uh [56:26] have so many questions about um mr ken dr kinzer and um mr o'neil the cia recruit created mk ultra in 1953 [56:38] supposedly out of fear that the soviet union and china had developed mind control capabilities [56:44] um let me go back a little bit further so one of my questions has to do with the event that happened [56:51] in 1951 in august in france there was a bakery that um i guess the people that lived in that community [57:01] over 250 some say 300 people were poisoned from the bread it was determined that that was lsd that was [57:09] that was that was that was causing all of these people to hallucinate some people died is there [57:18] any connection dr kinzer to that event and was that that was that something that either inspired the mk [57:25] ultra program or the nk mk naomi program or is that something that we we were involved in even that early [57:33] on i would turn that question back to you i don't think anybody really knows the full story of what [57:42] happened at that time in that town in france that the united states could have been involved that uh [57:48] this could have been part of what was then called operation artichoke the predecessor for mk ultra [57:54] seems to me not beyond the realm of possibility um there's a lot of overlap between the ergot enzyme [58:01] that is the uh basis of lsd and certain rye and uh wheat funguses that can be used in breads [58:10] was that something intentional was it something the americans were involved in uh i have my suspicions [58:16] but uh just based on my background as a journalist i don't operate on suspicions so uh i would love to [58:22] see more investigation of that episode um my next question has to do with once the program began [58:29] um i think one of the one of the most shocking um things we've determined is that is the operation [58:35] midnight climax that occurred in the early 1950s 60s where the cia had safe houses it and there was [58:45] um i say dr kinzer i mean this obviously this is extremely disturbing behavior that was happening where [58:55] you had american citizens who were being who were being lured into these brothels and then dosed with [59:05] um a hallucinogenic and then filmed during their sex acts was there were there any was there anyone [59:14] prosecuted for this for these crimes no there have been no prosecutions for any crime related to mk ultra [59:22] as far as i know uh the to me the remarkable aspect of that uh operation midnight climax was that there [59:30] wasn't even the pretense of scientific experimentation the person watching behind the one-way mirror was [59:38] a grossly overweight drug officer sitting on a portable toilet and drinking cocktails out of a pitcher [59:44] there was nobody there that was a scientist or somebody who understood sexual behavior or human [59:49] psychology so uh there was no science involved in it at all i can add a little footnote when i was [59:57] researching poisoner-in-chief i came across a document in which uh one of the officers involved in setting [1:00:04] up that program operation midnight climax said that sydney gottlieb himself used to fly from washington [1:00:11] out to inspect the project regularly and always asked that women be provided for him so that was my next [1:00:19] question do you think that the agents were involved in the sexual encounters well and could that have [1:00:24] actually been the reason why the bordello was opened there was no prospect of any serious scientific [1:00:32] result out of that project given the personnel who were overseeing it so uh those cia officers [1:00:41] particularly gottlieb involved in overseeing operation midnight climax uh certainly were able to [1:00:48] take advantage of what it offered thank you my last question first i want to say thank you to mr o'neill [1:00:53] the book chaos i checked it out from the library of congress um and greatly appreciate your work there [1:01:00] um i was intrigued by one of the statements that you made based on your research that the mk ultra [1:01:04] program they were actually successfully able to replace memories and because of that i'm wondering if [1:01:11] and dr kinzer you can chime in if you if you have any knowledge of this did the program continue and [1:01:17] do you think that the program in some aspect is still continuing today uh you're asking if the [1:01:25] program continued after 1973 when it was uh halted supposedly uh i honestly that's a question i'm [1:01:33] asked at almost every appearance i do is it happening today did it continue i don't know i can't imagine [1:01:41] that it didn't though because the technology that they worked to establish over 20 25 years and spent more [1:01:50] money on than any operation the cia had ever conducted was successful uh i imagine it's being [1:01:57] used i have no evidence of it being used so it's a complete assumption i i would just add that uh one [1:02:05] of the letters uh to which mr o'neill referred uh contains a quote from mr gottlieb saying that these [1:02:12] experiments were necessary quote in these times i think it's important to put yourself back in that mindset [1:02:19] where the united states felt that it was under such overwhelming threat that the loss of a few lives [1:02:24] or a few hundred lives was a small price to pay commitment to a great cause is one of the most [1:02:31] fundamental uh justifications for committing immoral acts and patriotism is among the most noble of [1:02:37] causes it can be twisted and it can be used as an excuse to carry out research under the guise that [1:02:46] this is simply research we're doing to protect ourselves against others and i think that is a [1:02:50] mindset that may still be active in some parts of our government thank you gentlemen thank you madam [1:02:56] chair my time is expired i yield back thank you mr burleson i now recognize myself uh thank you to the [1:03:06] witnesses for coming today to testify about mk ultra um dr genexi you said you worked for the nih is that [1:03:15] correct that is correct that is correct and you left in 2025 that is correct i noticed during your [1:03:24] opening statement that you had nothing to say about the uh content of this hearing being about mk ultra [1:03:34] your statements seem to be based more on your issues with this administration's attempt to reform [1:03:40] and reign in the nih is that a fair assessment of your opening statement my opening statement was talking [1:03:47] about the the uh destruction of the nih and cancellation of grants and political control of the nih would [1:03:58] would you deny that the nih had involvement in the funding of the wuhan lab i don't have any knowledge [1:04:08] about any funding related to the wuhan lab so are you denying that the nih i mean i'm basically here to [1:04:18] talk about what's happening right now at the nih and how we really should be letting science be driven [1:04:26] by scientists and not by politicians well do you because that's how we fund cures and make health [1:04:34] progress well with all due respect ma'am you find it ironic that for years we were told to trust the [1:04:39] science and then in the aftermath we've all found out that most of what we were told during covid was a [1:04:47] complete lie and it wasn't scientific at all the number one thing that i think that we're doing to [1:04:53] destroy trust in american science right now is is canceling clinical trials in the middle of those [1:05:01] clinical trials this does incredible harm to the patients who are receiving experimental treatments and [1:05:10] it really destroys the trust that we have and how do we recruit patients for future trials if they [1:05:16] are knowing that their trials could just be simply canceled for political reasons i don't think [1:05:21] anybody up here would deny that there's never been anything good that's come out of the nih and that [1:05:26] you guys have done some good work but you just brought up trust do you think the nih has a trust problem [1:05:32] based on how they handled covid no i do not i think that the nih is beloved by the american people because we know [1:05:41] about the advances in human health and cancer treatments and heart disease and diabetes and all of the [1:05:50] health gains that the research has produced well i think you're wrong ma'am i think that the public has [1:05:57] a serious mistrust issue with the nih do you do you deny that the nih tried to [1:06:05] cover up the origin of covet i'm not here to testify about that that's not my area of science [1:06:13] i have no knowledge of that are you do you believe that the nih supported masking and [1:06:20] social distancing when there was really no science to support that what i'm more concerned about is [1:06:27] what's happening right now to destroy the biomedical research institute of that has been the envy of [1:06:34] the world and right now we're seeding our leadership in biomedical research to china [1:06:39] that's what's happening right what about covering up harmful side effects of vaccines [1:06:44] and the role that the nih has played in that what do you have to say about that ma'am the u.s history [1:06:52] of human subject protection has evolved greatly numerous research improprieties from the 50s [1:06:59] to the 70s in the united states including the tuskegee syphilis study forced congress to [1:07:05] establish formally federal i'm not asking you about that you know what i'm asking you about [1:07:10] i'm asking you about how nih handled covid obviously this is supposed to be a hearing about mk ultra but [1:07:17] when you gave your opening statement and i don't even know why you were called to this hearing because [1:07:21] you didn't offer anything about mk ultra but since you are here and you're going to defend nih i'm going [1:07:27] to call you out on it do you do you see now what i'm talking about when you say that the nih doesn't [1:07:41] have integrity problems and trust issues did you hear the applause in this room that should tell you [1:07:47] right now that you're pretty tone deaf to what the public thinks about how the nih handled covid [1:07:53] and the cover-up not only the funding of it but the cover-up involved in the aftermath can you [1:07:58] acknowledge that i'm sorry that's not that's not my understanding thank you i want to um acknowledge [1:08:15] miss bobert for the next round of questioning thank you mr chairman and uh thank you to um two of our [1:08:22] witnesses who are here to actually talk on our subject here today mr kinzer um in your book uh poisoner in [1:08:30] chief uh you describe how project mk ultra was authorized by ca director alan dulles in april of 1953 [1:08:39] as an umbrella program for research into uh the covert use of biological and chemical materials [1:08:46] for mind control and interrogation what specific geopolitical and intelligence concerns uh particularly [1:08:53] regarding alleged soviet and chinese uh quote brainwashing and korean war prisoners drove this [1:08:59] authorization and and how did cindy um gottlieb's um unique background and personality and worldwide view [1:09:08] shape the program's direction and methods and ethical boundaries um let me start by answering your [1:09:16] second question about gottlieb um he was a very different person from all of the other cia senior [1:09:26] cia officers of that era most of them came from silver spoon backgrounds they went to the same prep [1:09:31] schools and the same ivy league colleges and belonged to the same yacht clubs and worked for the same law [1:09:36] firms and international banks sydney gottlieb was the son of orthodox jewish uh refugees from central [1:09:43] europe he had a limp uh he had a stutter he went to hebrew school he was so different from all of the [1:09:48] other officers and upon reflection i think this may not have been an accident i think uh that people at [1:09:56] the cia understood that whoever had this job was going to be doing some awful terrible things that be [1:10:01] very bloody that they might become known and it might be necessary to blame it all on somebody and [1:10:08] they didn't want to have to blame it all on one of their own so gottlieb actually became uh the person [1:10:16] on whom everything was blamed in fact when he testified in secret here in this uh in congress uh in the [1:10:23] 1970s uh he complained that there were documents on which various signatures had been redacted but his alone [1:10:31] had remained so uh is again is a way of uh diverting attention away from the institutional responsibility [1:10:39] of the cia and trying to blame it on one crazy person as for the international situation at the [1:10:46] time i think it's very important to understand this because there is a sort of a parallel to today [1:10:51] uh the cia misinterpreted several key incidents in the world including those to which you referred the [1:10:57] trial of the uh cardinal mincenti and then they were in hungary and then the return of korean war [1:11:04] prisoners um neither of those episodes really had to do with mind control but in the cia they were [1:11:10] interpreted that way and this gave the cia a reason to pretend that its research was purely defensive [1:11:20] so i think when you consider the world situation and the sense in washington that we're surrounded by [1:11:25] enemies that becomes a very dangerous environment conspiracy theories stem from the growth of the [1:11:33] covert sphere there's a great contradiction in american life that we pretend to uphold certain [1:11:39] principles at home and abroad but it's evident to many americans that we actually operate in opposition [1:11:46] to those principles and we operate by secret and anti-democratic means that contributes to suspicion [1:11:54] of government and the very existence of mk ultra proves that some of the wildest fantasies about [1:12:01] secret government research are actually close to reality that makes the paranoid mindset seem ever [1:12:08] more rational thank you and i'm gonna have to cut off several of my questions now but that was very [1:12:13] uh intriguing so i wanted you to continue mk ultra ultimately encompassed at least 149 sub-projects and [1:12:20] involving more than 80 institutions universities hospitals prisons pharmaceutical companies often [1:12:27] funded through cut out foundations to conceal cia sponsorship can you detail how these funding and [1:12:36] operational security mechanisms worked in practice and and then just another subset if i don't get back [1:12:41] to asking a question did the cia or government or any of these entities ever say that what they were [1:12:48] doing with mk ultra and mind control were uh were productive or for the betterment of humanity [1:12:55] did they ever make those claims thank you um as for your second question i'm not aware uh other than [1:13:03] in private uh communications that the cia ever uh claimed that it had made great advances under mk ultra [1:13:10] because it largely denied that mk ultra ever existed uh as for the foundations yeah these are uh the [1:13:16] uh sydney gottlieb created a couple of bogus foundations they're called cutouts in cia uh slang [1:13:23] and these are foundations that appear to be independent but actually are fully funded and [1:13:29] controlled by the cia it was those foundations that approached hospitals and clinics and asked [1:13:34] them to become involved in research particularly into lsd so many of the institutions where these [1:13:41] experiments took place did not even realize that those foundations were actually covers for the cia [1:13:48] thank you very much and um madam cherry thank you i now recognize representative mace from south [1:13:55] carolina for five minutes uh thank you so much uh dr genexi uh you work with the nih correct no i [1:14:04] and no longer affiliated with the nih when did you leave the nih april of last year april of last year [1:14:10] did you ever speak with anthony fauci or any of your nih colleagues when you were there about the [1:14:14] nih's role in funding the wuhan institute of virology or the development of covid 19 virus no [1:14:21] um do you believe that the nih or dr fauci lied to the american people about covid no are you familiar [1:14:29] with dr fauci's statements to congress about covid no you didn't watch any of dr fauci you worked at the [1:14:36] nih and you didn't watch any of dr fauci's no i did not work at niaid okay um do you think that uh do [1:14:45] you think the covid shots harm american citizens no i do not do you think that uh the covid shots cause [1:14:53] turbo cancers no have you read any do you know if the nih or nai aid uh track covid shot injuries or [1:15:05] cancers or anything harmful from them i am not aware of any harmful tracking and this is not my [1:15:13] area of expertise no what is your area of expertise i'm a research psychologist and i i did not work at [1:15:22] niaid and you're here for what reason i am here to testify about what is happening to the nih right now [1:15:31] you're not here to testify about mk ultra i am not an mk ultra expert why did the dem send you here if [1:15:39] you're not an mk ultra expert but i am an expert in human subjects protection which is related and [1:15:45] in the conduct of of human subjects research okay um but you don't know anything about mk ultra which is [1:15:54] the purpose of this hearing all right so i have a couple questions for our witnesses who are here to [1:16:00] talk about mk ultra and thank you gentlemen dr kenzer and dr mr o'neil um what are some of the worst [1:16:06] abuses that you're aware of in the mk ultra program uh i can start by just naming i'll talk about one [1:16:15] in particular that always sticks in my mind in the federal prison in lexington kentucky a group of [1:16:22] african-american inmates was segregated and fed what were described in the protocol as double triple and [1:16:29] quadruple doses of lsd every day for 77 days did they all survive we have no idea what happened to [1:16:40] them uh this has stuck with me ever since i wrote that book what happened to them did they ever find [1:16:45] out what was given to them did they think they were going crazy did they i think if they do you think [1:16:51] we're still experimenting on prisoners or people in prison today i don't have any information about that [1:17:00] uh i'm i'm hoping there'll be another book about what's happening now what are some of the worst [1:17:05] abuses in mk ultra um there were many uh the frank olson case which was referenced earlier uh that was [1:17:16] a murder i don't believe that was a suicide and the motivation was because he was going to be a [1:17:23] whistleblower he worked at the cia he worked in the development of biological weapons and he was planning [1:17:30] to go public uh and announced that the united states government was using biological weapons in the [1:17:38] korean war and uh also he was going to talk uh share what he knew about mk ultra experiments including [1:17:45] lethal experiments and there's a documented case how many um gentlemen how many people do you think [1:17:51] died through the mk ultra program or were murdered no idea if those who died largely were outside the united [1:17:57] states many people were experimented to death in that safe house in germany that i visited and [1:18:02] people in the neighborhood told me they knew what was going on in that house and that people who [1:18:07] were experimented to death are now buried in what used to be forest plots that are now covered do you [1:18:14] think the german government knew what the u.s government was doing you think there was a partnership [1:18:17] there or knowledge yes there is a memo that was written by the german secret service to konrad odenhauer the [1:18:24] chancellor of germany telling him american citizens are being americans are here capturing [1:18:30] citizens capturing people and conducting extreme experiments which are in violation of german law [1:18:36] and odenhauer decided to put that aside and not to invest one more questions i have 15 seconds [1:18:41] is this a massive cover-up by the u.s government it's certainly a cover-up of what happened in the [1:18:47] past mr o'neill oh absolutely yes thank you and i yield back thank you representative mace i now [1:18:54] recognize mr perry from pennsylvania for five minutes thank you chair uh thanks to the witnesses for being [1:19:00] here uh to dr kinzer and mr o'neill i want to focus on the information that we do have and and things of [1:19:09] that nature do we know of can you name the locations say the prisons the hospitals uh other institutions [1:19:18] and the cutouts as you describe either one of you folks describe them that would be familiar to us or [1:19:27] the american people can you name if i could begin just by saying at the end of the 1977 hearings senator [1:19:35] ted kennedy and senator dan daniel anyway who were the co-chairs demanded that there be an investigation [1:19:42] to find out who were the perpetrators where were the experiments conducted and most importantly to find [1:19:48] locate victims compensate them notify them because many didn't even know they've been experimented on [1:19:54] and give them lifetime medical care president jimmy carter and attorney general griffin bell said [1:20:02] the federal government will begin an investigation that never happened instead the cia created something [1:20:09] called the victim's task force to investigate itself it was a two-man investigation to locate [1:20:16] victims and they only look for people who had been experimented on in the safe houses they completely [1:20:22] have because i interviewed both of them before they passed away they completely avoided institutional [1:20:29] experimental programs at the hospitals and you're asking about the hospitals the oklahoma city hospital [1:20:34] lachlan air force base hospital lexington addiction center which dr kinzer referred to the holmesburg [1:20:41] prison vacaville prison uh universities all over the country uh yale ivy league universities none of [1:20:50] those records had there was a criminal investigation was also supposed to start into gottlieb's [1:20:56] destruction of the records that had been announced by the justice department and i interviewed griffin [1:21:01] bell and asked him what happened to all those investigations and what happened to all those [1:21:05] efforts to locate victims he said it just must have fallen through the cracks so it was the doj that was [1:21:10] supposed to invest doj the department of justice and they just kept passing it off and passing it [1:21:16] off you know if the doj and their investigation visited the places that you've named no absolutely [1:21:22] not from no wait hold on a second they didn't or you don't know oh no no i asked the two men who did [1:21:28] the investigation and they said all we did was look into what happened at the safe houses in san francisco [1:21:34] in new york city in 1962. so is it possible that information and document documentation remains at [1:21:42] the prisons the the uh treatment centers the universities where these things were conducted is [1:21:48] that possible yeah well i found dr west records at ucla in his file uh hospital records are really hard [1:21:54] to get because of hipaa laws and prison records the bureau of prisons do have a lot um so yeah it is [1:22:01] possible there's still documents buried places what were the age what were the average ages if you know [1:22:09] of the people that were experimented on were these children were these middle age were they [1:22:16] well there were adolescent studies done in um juvenile detention facilities and um jails with kids [1:22:25] who were 16 17 18 years old and at uh institutional schools for wayward kids the national training school [1:22:34] for boys here in washington dc had them um so it ranged um from i think adolescent pre-adolescent you know [1:22:44] through um any age what if you could describe either one of you the the the number of potential victims if [1:22:54] you could make a if you could hazard a guess there were 149 programs that we know of that were subcontracted [1:23:02] outside of 149 separate programs so yeah outside and that's what we know of again everything we know [1:23:08] of is minuscule compared to what was really going on so i mean that could have been into the tens of [1:23:14] thousands and i believe that's another reason that nothing was pursued because if those people were [1:23:20] compensated it could have bankrupted is there is there been any recent attempt to find locate identify [1:23:27] victims of this nothing i know of i would just add that there's been considerable progress in this [1:23:33] regard in canada there was a nk ulter research going on at a psychiatric hospital in canada and the [1:23:41] canadian government has made a real effort to try to find out who the victims were and also to compensate [1:23:45] them and to provide them with medical treatment so if we're looking for an example of a place where it was [1:23:51] done better even though it was on a much smaller scale canada would be a place to look so other [1:23:55] than embarrassment to the federal government maybe agencies involved in particular individuals who [1:24:01] are probably likely deceased at this point what is the what is the reason for the mass redaction [1:24:08] of the information that we do have has has any re reasoning been given i'm sorry shame that's what [1:24:20] i'm saying other than embarrassment but but i think it stands to reason that probably the individuals [1:24:27] involved in conducting and authorizing this activity are probably all deceased sure at this point is [1:24:36] there any reason to believe otherwise i make those arguments in my foyer requests but it doesn't get me [1:24:42] anywhere i don't know about you dr kinzer all right time's expired thank you representative perry i'm [1:24:50] now going to go to a second line of questions so i'll be recognizing myself um followed by i believe [1:24:54] representative over and either of the representatives if they'd like to join in um i wanted to elaborate [1:25:00] further dr kinzer what you had stated about potentially there being bodies the locations germany [1:25:05] because i'm going to reach out to the german government after this to get the ball rolling on [1:25:08] that if that is indeed the case can you just elaborate further on what you're hearing from [1:25:13] people in that area what they were saying and then also to potential locations of bodies [1:25:18] uh first of all the memo that chancellor odenhower received is on the record you can find that rec you [1:25:25] can find that memo warning that these operations are going on um i uh did speak to people who lived in [1:25:34] that area and uh they all understood they had some of them had cooperated with an investigation by a [1:25:40] german magazine their spiegel uh that called that house the cia torture center and in that article it [1:25:48] said there were deaths but the number is not known so it was a secret to us but what we were doing in [1:25:56] that house was really not even a secret to the people in the neighborhood it reminds me of the bombing [1:26:02] of cambodia there was a secret to us but if you were living in cambodia you would have known about it [1:26:06] so i think there is a fruitful uh uh ground for research looking into what happened in germany and seeing [1:26:14] uh what can be found out about these huge hugely destructive and devastating projects that were [1:26:23] essentially systematic torture going on in this house and who knows how many others um just to confirm [1:26:29] too when you found the initial transcripts with the chancellor um or correspondence um was there a [1:26:35] response from the u.s government to the germans no the u.s government would possibly have advised odenauer [1:26:44] not to pursue it but i don't think odenauer would have even need to be told that he would see it he [1:26:48] would understand his close partnership with the united states made it impossible for him to criticize [1:26:54] anything the u.s was doing don't forget this was not so long after the end of the second world war [1:26:58] so uh no there was no uh effort by the united states ever to uh reveal anything about what happened [1:27:07] in germany and in fact one of the foyer requests that i made that was uh never fulfilled and one [1:27:14] that i would urge you to pursue is what was sydney gottlieb doing during two years in germany he went [1:27:20] to germany and went to live there as a case officer i was never able to find out what did he do during [1:27:26] two years in germany there were huge numbers of mk ultra experiments going on in germany including a [1:27:31] number that were fatal that would be a very interesting catch of documents to find we will definitely be [1:27:37] following up my next question would be for either dr kinzer or mr o'neil declassified ci records have [1:27:43] revealed that officers deployed overseas have used usaid funding as an official cover or usaid [1:27:49] as an official cover for operational work that had nothing to do with the mission of usaid i.e [1:27:54] humanitarian aid medical relief etc in some cases cia officers operated under usaid cover engaged in [1:28:01] lethal activity in places such as vietnam running assassination missions during the war in country from [1:28:06] 1965 to 1975 and since mk ultra seems to have found its origin in drug experiments conducted on [1:28:13] prisoners overseas and first by the ss and nazi germany and then by u.s intelligence and camps [1:28:18] captured from the germans do you believe that usaid may have been used overseas in further influence [1:28:23] or further the mk ultra for example on prisoners of war since part of usaid's mission was to administer [1:28:29] drugs to the poor needy populations would the organization have abused its mandate by poisoning foreign [1:28:34] populations or creating disassociated states states for interrogation or torture i can't speak directly to [1:28:43] aid but it's certainly true that uh during this period after the second world war the united states [1:28:51] was using publicly announced and official u.s government agencies to carry out covert action [1:28:59] we now know for example that five percent of all the money appropriated for the marshall plan was [1:29:05] diverted for covert activities uh a number of u.s agencies uh were used as cover by covert operatives [1:29:13] uh and uh if that aid could have been one of them sounds very likely to me and the nimh admitted to [1:29:21] allowing itself to be used for covert funding of mk ultra experiments in the 1970s when the operation was [1:29:28] disclosed thank you i now recognize representative burchett for five minutes thank you chairlady thank you [1:29:37] all for being here i i remembered when all the talk about mk ultra broke and then they were talking about [1:29:43] lawsuits and there were lawsuits and cia and the federal government said that this didn't exist and [1:29:49] then they came back and said well it does exist and then uh but we're not doing it anymore [1:29:55] i guess my question to y'all first is which lie do we do we believe because [1:30:04] obviously there was an open bar before this thing started so thank y'all but um dr kenzer hit your mic [1:30:17] brother you're not on the mic it's an old cia trick i'm just kidding i put myself in the place of one of [1:30:23] those senior cia officers and i'm thinking to myself like the ones back in the 1950s well other people [1:30:30] must be doing this we'd be falling behind if we don't do it and nobody's looking over our shoulders [1:30:36] and that i think is is your job so i i think there is a definite uh air of urgency and total secrecy [1:30:45] um if the if any current research is going on and if it's conducted in any comparable level of secrecy [1:30:53] to the original mk ultra it's very deeply secret but one thing you said though it's going to be hard [1:30:59] for congress to act when they're so dadgum compromised let's just be honest i mean y'all are in the business [1:31:06] of of twisting ears and and telling us things that we've done and that that that sways a lot of people [1:31:17] up here somebody doesn't want to wreck a marriage or their business or lose this glamorous job that [1:31:23] we have um and so i i suspect that has a lot of play into it sorry to interrupt you i apologize all i [1:31:31] mean to say is that i think if there are such projects going on inside the u.s government uh there [1:31:39] there might be a sense that uh we can do this without any hostile supervision what are the possibilities [1:31:47] that that what we've learned in mk ultra now that it has advanced so much to algorithms and and the [1:31:54] computer and getting to loners that some of these loners could through this just mass propagation of [1:32:04] whatever you're doing uh could cause someone to maybe take a shot at a president i i know there's a lot [1:32:18] of speculation out there about the uh butler shooting and i guess even the charlie kirk shooting [1:32:26] i just hate to speculate um because i don't know i have no firsthand knowledge whether those guys were [1:32:32] programmed through radio waves or through their computer activity so i would never hazard a guess [1:32:40] except to say what i've already said that they developed means that we've never been told about [1:32:47] many many years ago and i imagine they've evolved to be much more effective now let me interrupt you [1:32:52] one more time and i apologize again but don't you think that they could cast this broad net through [1:32:58] these algorithms and other things and maybe they don't know the exact person it's going to affect [1:33:03] but they know what type of person it's going to affect and they know it's going to happen [1:33:07] and that way they can they can't predict when it's going to happen but they think it will happen [1:33:12] and then that way they can sort of wash their hands of this whole thing and say we didn't have [1:33:17] anything to do with it but in effect they really did because they uh they put this out there and [1:33:22] they continue to put it out there to whatever method you're talking about go ahead guys i'm sorry ma'am [1:33:29] if you want to jump in NIH okay doctor go ahead it sounds to me like you're describing something [1:33:35] like the martin luther king assassination the fbi didn't carry it out but it created such a climate [1:33:42] just denouncing king as the most dangerous man in america and putting out all this material about [1:33:47] how he was helping communists that they must have thought it's going to filter down somebody will take [1:33:53] action and then we can say we didn't have anything to do with it and james earl ray was [1:33:56] a third-rate thief he made an incredible shot one foot on a commode one foot in a in a bathtub [1:34:05] uh leaning out of a window basically and um the next day the um or that afternoon all the shrubbery [1:34:11] was cut in front of the flop house he was staying in there's a lot on that one that will never be [1:34:16] discussed i have some friends that were there so i guess i could i'm on pretty close to first-hand [1:34:22] knowledge but um yeah i'm sorry i'm probably going to get audited when i walk out of the room i just i know [1:34:28] it so thank you um chair lady i yield back my four seconds thank you rep uh rep urchin i would like [1:34:36] to now recognize representative bobert for five minutes thank you and i would love to let you [1:34:40] gentlemen um just talk some here but when we're bringing up um operations like naomi and mk ultra [1:34:49] there's operation mockingbird that was going on at the same time as mk ultra and it really ties into [1:34:56] uh what congressman birchett was was talking about with radio waves where we have these these um like [1:35:04] a venn diagram of uh individual people and the military casting a broader net uh so you have the [1:35:11] radio waves computer activity um the operation mockingbird the programming that is taking place [1:35:17] um so what do you see in relation to what was happening then and and what we are seeing [1:35:23] now um that that could be types of the same kind of programs and even using direct energy weapons or [1:35:31] the like mr o'neil you can begin i would just like to say one thing there was an objective outlined in [1:35:39] the early proposals for mk ultra to do experimentation to see whether they could do mass conversion [1:35:47] you know convert entire populations i think that had something to do with the france incident that you [1:35:53] were talking about earlier um again today it's all speculation but um back then they were trying to use [1:36:04] psychological uh means to see what you could how you could influence people's thoughts um and mockingbird [1:36:13] played into that which if people don't know that was where they had uh cia assets or co-opted people in [1:36:18] the media who would write write basically propaganda and uh try to control the thoughts and and beliefs of [1:36:27] of the population to what the cia needed and um is it still going on today i i would be surprised if it [1:36:35] wasn't sure i think we saw it even during covid with uh all of the na h funding that went uh to covid um [1:36:42] and and the wuhan lab and and then everything that came out of that um trying to make people believe [1:36:47] in something that wasn't there mr uh dr kinzer uh kinzer uh do you have anything on this i would say [1:36:55] only that in the modern age uh maybe radio waves and drugs are not necessary to control people's minds [1:37:03] we we have such a great advertising propaganda press social media collaboration that certain opinions [1:37:12] are marginalized and real debate is frustrated because people are not given access to full amounts of [1:37:18] information so that's a way of controlling minds of populations it doesn't even require sophisticated [1:37:25] electronic or of psychopharmacological means anything else you'd like to add for our next two minutes here [1:37:34] that we haven't maybe maybe you have answers to questions we haven't asked i would just like to [1:37:41] reiterate something that i said in response to your earlier question and that is that there's a reason why [1:37:47] conspiracy theories are so widespread in america it has to do with the disassociation between what we [1:37:54] say we are and do and what we really are and do this has become more and more clear to more and more [1:37:59] people therefore they're suspicious of uh nefarious dealings by the u.s and they're also suspicious of [1:38:08] other things that aren't nefarious at all but there's just this mentality that is created by the covert sphere [1:38:15] and that is what makes people realize that things that used to seem really far-fetched are not so [1:38:23] far-fetched after all yes well you know congress we we create these agencies and we even provide their [1:38:30] funding we appropriate that funding and then they are they come before us often and are are too big [1:38:37] uh to even answer simple questions that we have and and be held to account so uh it it does cause for a [1:38:45] lot of deceit um a lot of um doubt in the american people and certainly within uh us as members of [1:38:52] congress when these agencies refuse to answer to us the the branch of government that actually creates [1:38:58] them and provides their funding and then of course the american taxpayer whose money is being stolen [1:39:04] to fund all of their programs and agencies so i think that would be another reason how these uh conspiracy [1:39:10] theories grow because um government has grown so big it won't answer to the people maybe they just [1:39:16] think the people are too dumb to understand but certainly we want to get answers to the people [1:39:20] and i appreciate um you gentlemen for being here today madam chair i yield thank you representative [1:39:26] bobert representative burleson do you have any further questions okay i now recognize representative [1:39:31] burleson for five minutes mr o'neill um going back to um charles manson and the helter skelter incident [1:39:39] can can you explain how in the world someone who is an illiterate musician um that seemed to be [1:39:46] not exactly the brightest person somehow became a cult leader and and i was able to you know inspire [1:39:54] all of all of these individuals to do crazy things unfortunately i spent 20 years trying to find out [1:40:02] how that happened and what i was able to prove was that from the moment manson was released from federal [1:40:10] prison in 1967 he violated his parole went to the bay area without permission and was immediately put [1:40:18] under the supervision of a federal parole officer who basically gave him leniency as he gathered his [1:40:25] group of followers gave them drugs dominated them turned them into more or less subservient robots who [1:40:34] would do anything he said all that happened under the watchful eye of a parole officer named roger smith [1:40:41] who was also doing drug research at the same clinic that jolly west had set up his operation to recruit [1:40:47] subjects all the way until 1969 when manson finally ordered the murders that he was later convicted of [1:40:55] he had been arrested repeatedly for escalating uh crimes beginning with a petty thief uh better thievery stealing [1:41:05] cars and then rape attempted murder drug possession each time not only wasn't he prosecuted uh his parole [1:41:15] wasn't violated so the federal government in some capacity and enabled him to do what he did and uh flourish [1:41:24] until these crimes happened and in my book i i make a case and it's a theoretical case [1:41:31] that there was part of an operation called uh chaos also with the cia that we haven't talked about [1:41:38] today because it really doesn't have anything to do with drug research but it was um created to neutralize [1:41:45] what the government believed was a revolution that was happening in america in the 60s beginning with the [1:41:51] uh anti-war movement and then the black militancy movement and the panthers so it's kind of a big [1:41:57] stew of um a cauldron of possibilities that manson emerged from all that uh when i don't think he should [1:42:07] have yeah it's it's fascinating that you have an individual jolly west who was working with this parole [1:42:13] officer provide you know you think the parole officer was making the connection so that the drugs were then [1:42:21] flowing through well the parole officer was at the same time he was um supervising manson's parole [1:42:28] running a research project called the amphetamine research project out of that clinic and that was [1:42:34] studying um amphetamines and violence and drugs and group behavior and gangs in the bay area [1:42:42] um again i hate to speculate i know it sounds like a cop-out but when you see the tentacles that um cross [1:42:53] paths with manson when he got to los angeles as well um i believe that he was co i mean he was manipulated [1:43:02] and at the very least given freedom to do what he did while he was being observed and then the same [1:43:09] individual jolly west ends up in oklahoma in oklahoma correct so that's where he was he operating out of [1:43:18] oklahoma for during even this time with mr when he contracted with the cia he was at lachlan air force [1:43:24] base uh he was a chief psychiatrist at the hospital so he began his experiments there um a year after [1:43:33] the letter that i quoted in my statement where he was describing what he wanted to do uh a year later on [1:43:40] july 3rd 1954 a three-year-old girl was abducted and um found later in a gravel pit uh murdered [1:43:51] and next to a car that had been abandoned and the search party that found the little girl's body [1:43:57] was approached by a man who was an airman at the base and he asked them where he was and how he had [1:44:04] gotten there he was arrested for the murder and um described by the military officers who had him in [1:44:12] custody as being in a trance or days he didn't have any drugs in his system he didn't recognize his [1:44:18] wife when she was brought to see him and at his trial where jolly west was his advising psychiatrist [1:44:25] who examined him of course um it emerged that he had actually been being treated at the hospital at [1:44:32] lachlan for in an experimental program to cure his chronic debilitating migraine headaches and he was [1:44:39] executed four years later and then years later he ends up volunteering um for to handle the jack ruby [1:44:47] west does yeah all right thank you thank you madam chair so just before we wrap up is it in your [1:44:54] expert opinion that jack ruby and manson were assets of the intelligence agency specifically pertaining to mk [1:45:01] ultra were the mk ultra yeah theoretically manson i i've never been able to prove absolutely jack ruby [1:45:08] i believe this is something else the warren commission investigation uh on the warren commission was alan [1:45:16] dulles the former cia director who authorized and ran mk ultra until he was fired by president kennedy [1:45:24] the liaison to the committee for the cia who handled the information coming from the cia back and forth to [1:45:31] the warren commission was richard helms who was a direct supervisor of jolly west they knew who west was [1:45:37] they knew that um what west was capable of and what they had paid him to do and what he had reported to [1:45:43] them that he could do including inducing um mental disorders in people uh that was never disclosed to the [1:45:50] commission as far as anyone knows uh so i believe that west was put in there to keep jack ruby from telling [1:45:57] his story um wow um in closing i just want to thank you all for being here today and we will be [1:46:04] following up dr kinzer on your request to fully redact um i'll be following personally with the [1:46:10] director of the cia um the m culture files that we do have also as i noted earlier there will be more [1:46:16] that will be declassified um specifically pertaining to newly found records that were located [1:46:22] in what we were discussing earlier um i did also want to just state that for the record in regards [1:46:28] to what statements were made earlier regarding the german government we will also be following up on [1:46:32] that if there are indeed people that were victims of this that have been buried we would like to know [1:46:37] who those people are and who their families are as well in order to correct the historical wrongdoings [1:46:42] of this government without further ado i would like to state that all members have five legislative days [1:46:49] within to submit materials and additional written questions for the witnesses that will be then [1:46:53] forward to them if there are no further business without objection the task force stands adjourned