I'm highly curious about the MK-ULTRA connection. It's an old USA program from the 1950s and 1960s that illegally dosed people with LSD. One guy died due to a co-worker poisoning him with it. It was to develop mind control and truth serum stuff, and there were other drugs involved. The Unabomber was a part of it (Ted Kaczynski) back when he was just a university professor. It also caused Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to promote LSD outside of it, birthing part of the hippy movement. Robert Hunter, lyric writer for The Grateful Dead, was also a part of it.
One 1955 MKUltra document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:
* Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
* Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
* Materials which will cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity.
* Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
* Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc.
* Materials which will cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory.
* Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
* Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
* Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
* Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
* Substances which will produce a chemical that can cause blisters.
* Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
* A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
* Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
* Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
* A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
* A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity.
I edited this part out until I had confirmation, so I'll steal it, too: As the experimentation progressed, a point was reached where outsiders were drugged with no explanation whatsoever and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard among CIA operatives. Adverse reactions often occurred, for example an operative who had received the drug in his morning coffee, became psychotic and ran across Washington, seeing a monster in every car that passed him. Incidents like that reaffirmed that LSD is a dangerous weapon but that only made them more enthusiastic. The experiments continued even after Dr. Frank Olson, an army scientist who had not taken LSD before, went into deep depression after a surprise trip and later fell from a thirteenth story window (it is unclear whether he committed suicide or was murdered before being thrown out of the window).
Stolen from Wikipedia.
One more Wikitheft:
Canadian Experiments
The experiments were exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Scottish psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron, creator of the "psychic driving" concept, which the CIA found particularly interesting. Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and reprogramming the psyche. He commuted from Albany, New York, to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKUltra experiments there. In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.[42] His treatments resulted in victims' incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.[43] His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist William Sargant at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Surrey, who was also involved in the Intelligence Services and who experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.[44]
It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 1946–47.[45]
Naomi Klein argues in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was actually not about mind control and brainwashing, but about designing "a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources.' In other words, torture." Citing Alfred W. McCoy, Klein further writes that "Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Dr. Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method."[46]
So, yeah. Is there any connection? Doubt it. Are they likely insane conspiracy nuts? Yeah. But, interesting. I doubt the 1984 is related to the MKUltra part, because of, well, 1984.
