Deep Politics Forum

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jan, thay had truckloads full of exacting information on subjects under all kinds of conditions, knowing age, health status, means of administration, naive or not to what to expect, mixes of drugs, dosages, etc.

There's no evidence that the "MK-ULTRA" nexus had "truckloads" of information on the effects of LSD on humans in 1951, when the Pont St Esprit incident happened.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jan, thay had truckloads full of exacting information on subjects under all kinds of conditions, knowing age, health status, means of administration, naive or not to what to expect, mixes of drugs, dosages, etc. They may have just wanted to see what would happen in 'real world' chemical attack on a population [where one can't control much of anything]. If they did it [and I believe they did], they would have had persons to record the reactions/effects hidden about. That real world reaction might have been all they cared about - not careful dosages, who got what/where and maybe even how. Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rather 'messy' experiments, as well....I can name others.

At which point the science enters in as statistic analysis.

Or maybe there is a CIA science, which is might go like this: "Screw it. Let's do and see what happens." The "scientific" analysis is at the level of: "Shit, man, that was really cool."

When you have a culture of unlimited power with no accountability, anybody can do anything for almost any reason. Just sayin.'

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jan, thay had truckloads full of exacting information on subjects under all kinds of conditions, knowing age, health status, means of administration, naive or not to what to expect, mixes of drugs, dosages, etc.

There's no evidence that the "MK-ULTRA" nexus had "truckloads" of information on the effects of LSD on humans in 1951, when the Pont St Esprit incident happened.

Well, maybe less than they had by the late 60s, granted, but they likely had the Swiss and Nazi 'experimenters' information. It was not known to the pulic then, but it was know in a small circle. Enough to try to use it as an incapacitant at the very least. Hoffman had tripped on it 13 years earlier and had dabbled and experimented with it [as had others] since.

------------------From Acid Dreams-----------------------------
From the outset the ClA's mind control program had an explicit domestic angle. A
memo dated July 13, 1951, described the Agency's mind-bending efforts as "broad
and comprehensive, involving both domestic and overseas activities, and taking into
consideration the programs and objectives of other departments, principally the
military services." BLUEBIRD activities were designed to create an "exploitable
alteration of personality" in selected individuals; specific targets included "potential
agents, defectors, refugees, POWs," and a vague category of "others." A number of
units within the CIA participated in this endeavor, including the Inspection and
Security Staff (the forerunner of the Office of Security), which assumed overall
responsibility for running the program and dispatching the special interrogation
teams. Colonel Sheffield Edwards, the chairman of the BLUEBIRD steering
committee, consistently pushed for a more reliable speech-inducing substance. By
the time BLUEBIRD evolved into Operation ARTICHOKE (the formal change in code
names occurred in August 1951)
........
It was with the hope of finding the long-sought miracle drug that CIA investigators
first began to dabble with LSD-25 in the early 1950s. At the time very little was
known about the hallucinogen, even in scientific circles. Dr. Wemer Stoll, the son of
Sandoz president Arthur Stoll and a colleague of Albert Hermann's, was the first
person to investigate the psychological properties of LSD. The resuits of his study
were presented in the Swiss Archives of Neurology in 1947. Stoll reported that LSD
produced disturbances in perception, hallucinations, and acceleration in thinking;
moreover, the drug was found to blunt the usual suspiciousness of schizophrenic
patients. No unfavorable aftereffects were described. Two years later in the same
journal Stoll contributed a second report entitled "A New Hallucinatory Agent, Active
in Very Small Amounts."
The fact that LSD caused hallucinations should not have been a total surprise to the
scientific community. Sandoz first became interested in ergot, the natural source of
lysergic acid, because of numerous stories passed down through the ages. The rye
fungus had a mysterious and contradictory reputation. In China and parts of the
Mideast it was thought to possess medicinal qualities, and certain scholars believe
that it may have been used in sacred rites in ancient Greece. In other parts of
Europe, however, the same fungus was associated with the horrible malady known
as St. Anthony's Fire, which struck periodically like the plague. Medieval chronicles
tell of villages and towns where nearly everyone went mad for a few days after
ergot-diseased rye was unknowingly milled into flour and baked as bread. Men were
afflicted with gangrenous limbs that looked like blackened stumps, and pregnant
women miscarried. Even in modem times there have been reports of ergot-related
epidemics.*
The CIA inherited this ambiguous legacy when it embraced LSD as a mind control
drug. An ARTICHOKE document dated October 21, 1951, indicates that acid was
tested initially as part of a pilot study of the effects of various chemicals "on the
conscious suppression of experimental or non-threat secrets." In addition to lysergic
acid this particular survey covered a wide range of substances, including morphine,
ether, Benzedrine, ethyl alcohol, and mescaline. "There is no question," noted the
author of this report, "that drugs are already on hand (and new ones are being
produced) that can destroy integrity and make indiscreet the most dependable
individual." The report concluded by recommending that LSD be critically tested
"under threat conditions beyond the scope of civilian experimentation." POWs,
federal prisoners, and Security officers were mentioned as possible candidates for
these field experiments.
* In 1951 hundreds of respectable citizens in Pont-Saint-Esprit, a small French village, went completely
berserk one evening. Some of the town's leading citizens jumped from windows into the Rhone. Others
ran through the streets screaming about being chased by lions, tigers, and "bandits with donkey ears."
Many died, and those who survived suffered strange aftereffects for weeks.

Peter - I've been rereading sections of Acid Dreams as well.

The known record strongly suggests that the early LSD experiments were on subjects who could be monitored closely, and that LSD was being investigated as a truth serum. This is what is meant by the phrase "a more reliable speech-inducing substance" in the excerpt you include.

As per my posts above, the early LSD experiments were not designed to identify an incapacitant.

Interrogation of, to use Gordon Thomas's phrase, "expendable SS" POWs fits within the framework of human experimentation without ethical constraint. However, this was still science, albeit from the same stable as Strughold's terminal altitude and hypothermia experiments.

It was science without ethical constraint.

If Pont St Esprit was a Bluebird or Artichoke experiment, then it was not science in any sense.

It was simply an act of total recklessness, with no realistic prospect of any scientific knowledge being learnt.

Lauren Johnson Wrote:

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Jan, thay had truckloads full of exacting information on subjects under all kinds of conditions, knowing age, health status, means of administration, naive or not to what to expect, mixes of drugs, dosages, etc. They may have just wanted to see what would happen in 'real world' chemical attack on a population [where one can't control much of anything]. If they did it [and I believe they did], they would have had persons to record the reactions/effects hidden about. That real world reaction might have been all they cared about - not careful dosages, who got what/where and maybe even how. Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rather 'messy' experiments, as well....I can name others.

At which point the science enters in as statistic analysis.

Or maybe there is a CIA science, which is might go like this: "Screw it. Let's do and see what happens." The "scientific" analysis is at the level of: "Shit, man, that was really cool."

When you have a culture of unlimited power with no accountability, anybody can do anything for almost any reason. Just sayin.'

That (in fewer words) was what I was trying to say.

Ed Jewett Wrote:

Lauren Johnson Wrote:Jan, thay had truckloads full of exacting information on subjects under all kinds of conditions, knowing age, health status, means of administration, naive or not to what to expect, mixes of drugs, dosages, etc. They may have just wanted to see what would happen in 'real world' chemical attack on a population [where one can't control much of anything]. If they did it [and I believe they did], they would have had persons to record the reactions/effects hidden about. That real world reaction might have been all they cared about - not careful dosages, who got what/where and maybe even how. Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rather 'messy' experiments, as well....I can name others.

Quote:At which point the science enters in as statistic analysis.

Or maybe there is a CIA science, which is might go like this: "Screw it. Let's do and see what happens." The "scientific" analysis is at the level of: "Shit, man, that was really cool."

When you have a culture of unlimited power with no accountability, anybody can do anything for almost any reason. Just sayin.'

That (in fewer words) was what I was trying to say.

The Scientific Method is a way by which knowledge may be gained by experimentation or observation, using inductive and deductive reasoning to develop hypotheses and then theories, and after that, laws (such as the Law of Thermodynamics) which are universally applicable. It does not necessarily have to be morally or ethically correct, but simply truthful. In that sense, Science is without morality; it is not moral nor immoral, but is AMORAL (without morality). What is scientifically true is true everywhere, in the US, UK, Canada, France, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Artica, Anartica, on the oceans and waterways, in the atmosphere, outer space, under identical conditions. Cultural, political, economic, social, religious, and other attitudes determine the usefulness or non-usefulness of scientific work as ethical or moral in human society.

The word "science" is derived from sciencia which means knowledge.

Adele

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Peter - I've been rereading sections of Acid Dreams as well.

The known record strongly suggests that the early LSD experiments were on subjects who could be monitored closely, and that LSD was being investigated as a truth serum. This is what is meant by the phrase "a more reliable speech-inducing substance" in the excerpt you include.

As per my posts above, the early LSD experiments were not designed to identify an incapacitant.

Interrogation of, to use Gordon Thomas's phrase, "expendable SS" POWs fits within the framework of human experimentation without ethical constraint. However, this was still science, albeit from the same stable as Strughold's terminal altitude and hypothermia experiments.

It was science without ethical constraint.

If Pont St Esprit was a Bluebird or Artichoke experiment, then it was not science in any sense.

It was simply an act of total recklessness, with no realistic prospect of any scientific knowledge being learnt.

Jan,

I agree with you. It was not an ethical or moral or humanitarian use of knowledge at Pont-St.-Esprit.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1...ond+Within

It would have been known quite early in investigations on LSD that when given the drug, recipients would sit quietly without moving very much because they would be "watching" the movie in their minds, the visual images being created and flying thoughts. So, they were incapacitated in most cases because their attention would be distracted by LSD effects.

And, yes, LSD could have been used as a "truth serum" because it makes the recipient very suggestible to hypnotically presented statements. So a criminal could confess to a crime very easily.

Click on URL above, in reference to a book by Sidney Cohen, THE BEYOND WITHIN, 268 pages, Antheneum Press, 1965. Cohen discusses the use of LSD in hypnotic suggestions.
There were reports in the medical literature of the use of LSD as a hypnotic agent before 1960, but very little had been revealed publicly in the earlier years..

We all know of the work done by a hypnotist at Harvard (?) who succeeded in unlocking the memory of Sirhan Sirhan, alleged RFK assassin, whose memory of events in 1968 had apparently been blocked by a hypnotist who substituted a memory of being at target practice instead of where he really was, in the Hotel Ambassador kitchen. Although many hypnotists had tried, Sirhan Sirhan had remembered nothing of being in the kitchen at the time RFK was killed, nor of being at target practice. Was LSD, or something similar, used on Sirhan Sirhan in 2011 to reveal his thoughts at the time RFK was killed, 43 years later? I have not seen anything on this matter.

Adele

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Peter - I've been rereading sections of Acid Dreams as well.

The known record strongly suggests that the early LSD experiments were on subjects who could be monitored closely, and that LSD was being investigated as a truth serum. This is what is meant by the phrase "a more reliable speech-inducing substance" in the excerpt you include.

As per my posts above, the early LSD experiments were not designed to identify an incapacitant.

Interrogation of, to use Gordon Thomas's phrase, "expendable SS" POWs fits within the framework of human experimentation without ethical constraint. However, this was still science, albeit from the same stable as Strughold's terminal altitude and hypothermia experiments.

It was science without ethical constraint.

If Pont St Esprit was a Bluebird or Artichoke experiment, then it was not science in any sense.

It was simply an act of total recklessness, with no realistic prospect of any scientific knowledge being learnt.

Ir it was done [Pont St. Esprit] by the CIA or one of its proprietaries it was likely under Bluebird [or one of the first of Artichoke]. You are correct that much of this 'science' was done unethically. Reading what you said above reminded me that once when I was researching some scientific literature I found a debate in that literature whether it was ethical to publish the work the Nazi 'scientists and doctors' did on concentration camp victims. In fact, most of it has made its way into the current literature [often not by the original 'experimenter' - although at times by them, especially when rehabilitated through Paperclip and similar], as it is considered so important scientifically/medically - this despite the ethics involved [actually the total lack of ethics!] While the Nazi's systematic torture and brutality and working to death has little equal in modern times [the Japanese before and during WWII did a good job of second place on a smaller scale - as did Stalin in his Gulag], the Americans and the Western Powers were capable and there is documated evidence they also engaged in unethical experimentation - as I'm sure you can cite as well as I - before, during and after WW2. They felt they had a 'get out of jail and ethical responsibility-free card' and they used it. Pont St. Esprit could have been one such time. That they were [according to Acid Dreams - a great book, but not the last word] looking for a truth-serum at the time doesn't rule out that they were looking for incapacitants [which have a history back to before WWI] or what the effect of their truth-serum could/would be on an unwitting population in a real-life setting. Sadly, one can get knowledge, scientific and medical and military from unethical experiments in the lab, hospital, detention or death camp, and in real-life settings. As mentioned above much of the Nazi experimentation is still used - though it has been 'laundered' so to speak. Personally, I think it is unethical to publish such results - as unethical as the original 'experiments', but I'm obviously in a minority in the scientific world - or part of an unempowered majority. Behind the shield of 'national security' all kinds of horrors have been and continue to be perpetrated. On Pont St. Esprit, the definitive answers likely lie still in the denied vaults of the intelligence services of the CIA and perhaps the French intelligence services. It doesn't seem like ergotism to me, so what does that leave?!

Here's a scientific and ethical questtion from current news:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...tails.html

Should the method of creation of this deadly virus have been published?

Adele

Peter Lemkin Wrote:....Reading what you said above reminded me that once when I was researching some scientific literature I found a debate in that literature whether it was ethical to publish the work the Nazi 'scientists and doctors' did on concentration camp victims. In fact, most of it has made its way into the current literature [often not by the original 'experimenter' - although at times by them, especially when rehabilitated through Paperclip and similar], as it is considered so important scientifically/medically - this despite the ethics involved [actually the total lack of ethics!] .... As mentioned above much of the Nazi experimentation is still used - though it has been 'laundered' so to speak. Personally, I think it is unethical to publish such results - as unethical as the original 'experiments', but I'm obviously in a minority in the scientific world - or part of an unempowered majority.

I thought there was an international agreement or perhaps it was the professional bodies that decided that the findings and body of work of the Nazi and Japanese human experiments were not to be used in any future research? I am fairly certain that such a quaint idea has been abandoned in more recent time since 911 say but that was my understanding.