Quote:ROBERT SKIDMORE ECKE

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=76467548



1. Portsmouth Herald Obituaries from May 26, 2001
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/5_ - [Cached]

Published on: 5/26/2001 Last Visited: 8/12/2001

Dr. Robert S. Ecke

ELIOT , Maine - Dr. Robert Skidmore Ecke , of Eliot , passed away Saturday , May 19 , 2001 , at Portsmouth Regional Hospital after a short illness.

Born in Brooklyn , N.Y. , Nov. 22 , 1909 , he was the son of the late Albert D. and Grace ( Dekker ) Ecke.

He was educated in New York City public schools and in 1931 graduated from Bowdoin College , receiving an A.B. degree cum laude in German , chemistry and biology. At college he also was a member of the varsity football team and president of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.

In 1935 , he received his M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University and following that was a surgical intern with the Baltimore City Hospitals in 1936 and a research fellow with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1937. Prior to World War II , he was on the staff of Notre Dame Memorial Hospital in Twillingate , Newfoundland , Canada. His experiences there are recounted in his recent book , Snowshoe & Lancet..

During World War II , he served in the United States Army in the Medical Corps. Most of his service was in the European Theatre where he was decorated for meritorious service in connection with his work for the Typhus Commission. The work with the Typhus Commission took him to a number of countries in southern Europe and Africa during the latter stages of the war. During the last six months of the war , he served with the partisan forces in Yugoslavia and he pioneered typhus control in that country.

Immediately after World War II , while still in the Army , he served as a consultant to SHAEF and subsequently was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel. Following the war , he briefly served as medical director for Notre Dame Memorial Hospital. He left after a short term there and took on special projects with the CIA. He continued to work for the CIA until 1964. His official comment on this portion of his career was always No comment..

He then engaged himself in medical research until 1969. From 1969 through 1979 , he was in the private practice of medicine in Hartsdale , N.Y. In 1979 , he retired and moved to Eliot.

Quote:“While the technique that Ecke and Gladych are considering for use in this case is not known to the writer, the writer believes the approach will be made through the standard narco-hypnosis technique. Re-conditioning and re-orienting an individual in such a matter, in the opinion of the writer, cannot be accomplished easily and will require a great deal of time and the fact that an interpreter is required in this case complicates it considerably more. It is also believed that with our present knowledge, we would have no absolute guarantee that the subject in this case would maintain a positive friendly attitude toward us even though there is apparently a positive response to the treatment. The writer did not suggest to [ 06 ] that perhaps a total amnesia could be created by a series of electro shocks, but merely indicated that amnesia under drug treatments were not certain.
MORSE ALLEN"

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Panama is a luverly place to mix up some potions:

Quote:US Army Tropic Test Site
As providers of equipment for use around the globe, it is frequently necessary for military materiel developers to meet the challenges posed by the world’s harsh climatic extremes. To ensure that humid tropic challenges are met, Army systems began to be tested systematically in the Panama Canal Zone in 1962, with the establishment of the Tropic Test Center (TTC) under the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command. However, TTC history goes back much farther.

Several "crash" testing programs were instituted in Panama during World War II to ensure that military equipment deployed to tropical locations remained effective. Many years after the war, in 1962, the surviving activities were consolidated into one agency – the Tropic Test Center. Numbering well over 300 people during the Vietnam War days of the 1960’s, the organization has since been downsized and placed under the management of U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground.

The Tropic Test Center mission is to plan and conduct tropic environmental development tests on a wide variety of military systems, materials, weapons, and equipment of all conceivable types, sizes, configurations, and uses. The center’s laboratory facilities provide detailed information on tropic-induced failures and other environmental effects. All testing in Panama is conducted to the same stringent environmental protection standards as similar activities in the United States.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/fort-clayton.htm

It all started with some covert Nazi business in the jungle:

Quote:The 5th Infantry left after WWI and returned to stay in Camp Paraiso from 1939 to 1943. The 2nd FA is the only other major US Army unit to be stationed at Clayton in those Pre WWII years. But we can claim the 33rd as our Canal Zone Reg. since it was born in the Zone.

The 33rd Infantry stayed in Clayton until December 7,1941 when virtually within hours they shipped out to Trinidad to set up the protection for the newly acquired Lend Lease Bases in Trinidad.

With German occupation of Holland the Dutch Queen had fled to Dutch Guiana and soon units of the 33rd Inf. came over to render protection for the queen and to thwart any attempt by Germany to move in more than was already happening. For secret Nazi bases had been set up in the jungles to supply U-Boats that would come up the river for provisions.

The troops of the 33rd Inf. battled hostile indians, the German camps and waylaid the U-Boats in ambush on the river. They were also there to insure the safe passage out of Bauxite ore which was so vital to our aircraft industry. These activities were kept a secret during the war and the 33rd Inf. returned home to Ft. Clayton in Feb.1946.

When the 33rd Inf. departed for war in 1941 they had at 25 years the longest record of continuous CZ service for any unit of the U.S. Army and were rightly considered the premier jungle trained unit in the Army. They were truly Zonians for no other unit like that had been born on the Zone.

http://www.czimages.com/CZMemories/Fort_Clayton/FC_index.htm

Quote:More than 130 tests were conducted on San Jose Island between May 1944 and the end of 1947.36 Many of the tests were "drop tests" involving aircraft that dropped chemical munitions into target areas. Others required troops to fire chemical mortars into the test areas, and still others involved more controlled use of munitions. In a very few cases, project reports indicate the use of chemical simulants, but in most live agent was employed.

The project divided the island into eleven areas, six of which were laid in grids for target areas. The three largest target areas, made up of overlapping squares, were about one square mile each in size. The chemical agents tested (and their military codes) included: mustard gas and distilled mustard (H, HD), phosgene (CG), cyanogen chloride (CK), hydrogen cyanide (AC), and Butane.37 One participant remembers that Lewisite was also tested.38

From available documents, the number of munitions tested are known for 18 of the 130 tests conducted on San Jose Island. Some 4,397 chemical munitions were fired in these 18 tests, for an average of 244 munitions fired in each test. Most of the munitions fired - 3,816 - were 4.2" mortars charged with Cyanogen Chloride, mustard, or phosgene, but the chemical munitions also included bombs from 100 pounds to 1,000 pounds in weight and 105mm Howitzer shells.

The San Jose Project also tested chemical munitions on the sea off of Panama in order to determine whether chemical warfare could be effective against enemy ships.39 In addition, according to a military map drawn up in 1946, tests included chemical spray on Iguana Island, which was also used as a conventional bombing range.40

A later military summary stated that "no nerve agents were tested" in San Jose.41 One participant in the project, however, tentatively asserted that nerve agent was tested there. Eugene Reid, a professional chemist by training, was drafted into the Chemical Warfare Service and served in Florida, Dugway Proving Ground and Edgewood Arsenal, as well as on San Jose. "Besides mustard, they were also testing newer things. Nerve gases, that was the hot thing then," Reid said in 1997. When subsequently asked for confirmation, he was less certain whether nerve agents were tested on San Jose. "I suspect very much that they were, but I can't say for sure they were used," he said.42

While neither the United States nor Great Britain had developed nerve agents of its own by 1945, the Allies had captured significant quantities of nerve agent from the Nazis as Germany receded before advancing Allied troops in the Spring of 1945, which is when Reid arrived in San Jose. The British felt that some of the stocks of captured German nerve agent should be "retained for possible use in the Far East" should the Allies invade Japan, an eventuality for which the San Jose Project was preparing.43

[...................................]

One of the San Jose tests, carried out between August 9 and August 15, 1944, sought "to determine if any difference existed in the sensitivity of Puerto Rican and Continental U.S. Troops to H gas [mustard]." A preliminary test involved ten Puerto Rican troops and ten "continental" (i.e., Anglo-Saxon) troops, which was followed by a fuller test involving 45 Puerto Rican soldiers and 44 "continental" soldiers. The men, who were "unfamiliar with the use of chemical agents," were "given a stiff course in gas discipline and the significance of H [mustard] lesions to casualty production." The tests involved applying liquid mustard to the under-surface of the forearms of each subject, then observed for three days. A summary of the test produced by Defense Secretary William Cohen in April 1998 implied that some men were hospitalized after they "sustain[ed] severe body burns or eye lesions." Men with less severe burns were simply returned to their barracks and expected to meet company formations.

http://www.forusa.org/programs/panama/archives/chem-report/part9.htm

During World War II, the military developed an increased interest in biological warfare, both defensive and offensive. The first action of the War Research Service, which was established in 1942 to investigate a variety of unconventional weapons, was to set up antibiological warfare programs in the United States and abroad -- including the Canal Zone and Puerto Rico -- under the auspices of the Surgeon General's office. These programs instructed medical and military officers in defensive measures against biological weapons.99 (This and all subsequent endnotes can be found here.)

In late 1947, the British Navy proposed to use U.S. facilities on San Jose Island to support biological warfare trials at sea, beginning in October 1948. Under the plan, the United States would provide 20 technicians, care for animals used in the experiments, and "shore base facilities" for recreation and ship maintenance. The military's Joint Strategic Plans Committee favored the experiments because they would "facilitate the obtaining of essential basic research data in the BW [biological warfare] field." But with the evacuation of San Jose Island in January 1948, the plan for using that island was scuttled. The experiments may have been carried out instead on Parham Sound in Antigua, which was considered as an alternate site.100

Since plans for the military use of biological agents focused on their transmission through aerial spray techniques, studies of aerosol spray patterns in Panama may have been designed to explore how biological agents could be used there. Dugway Proving Ground's technical library lists a number of such studies.101 However, chemical sprays and smoke devices also rely on aerial and meteorological data.

The National Institutes of Health's Middle America Research Unit (MARU) actively used biological agents in Panama. MARU was established in the 1950s, and worked closely with the Gorgas Memorial Laboratory. Located in a building in Ancon Heights, MARU "handled some of the deadliest and most infectious diseases known to medicine at the time," according to Carl J. Peters, a scientist who worked there in the 1960s. Peters emphasized the measures taken to contain the agents that the MARU technicians were working on, but noted that one lab technician accidentally contracted Bolivian hemorrhagic fever at the lab and died within a few days.

One disease in particular that MARU worked with was Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE), a naturally-occurring virus which incapacitates but generally does not kill its human victims. Instead, VEE begins abruptly with high fever, chills and aches and an intense aversion to light, then typically is gone within a week or two. In Central America in the 1960s, VEE attacked horses and mules, leaving many dead, and MARU sought to stem the disease's migration toward the United States through development of a vaccine. But Peters writes:

Quote:Nobler designs aside, however, the U.S. government had other reasons to be interested in VEE. The symptoms in humans are so incapacitating that VEE had been seen as a potential biological weapon. The army wanted to develop different categories of biological warfare agents: incapacitators as well as killers. With a relatively short incubation period of two to three days, VEE could be an ideal incapacitator: neutralizing an enemy population right before a battle without risk of killing innocent civilians or committing wartime atrocities. With that as a plan, the army had developed a vaccine to protect our troops in case an enemy tried to use it on them, or presumably in case the wind blew the wrong way the day they tried to use it on someone else.102

The army authorized MARU to test a live-attenuated vaccine on horses in the field, and Peters describes such tests on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. The Gorgas Memorial Laboratory also studied VEE among humans in Almirante from 1960 to 1962 and in Darién and the urban communities of Patoistown and Zegla in 1968, as well as in laboratory animals during the same periods. The studies included testing live vaccines of VEE on animal subjects.103

Exercises to test the military usefulness of VEE were carried out in Vietnam in the 1960s and on deserted islands in the Pacific, according to one account, but were put aside because allied troops could not be protected.104

VEE has persisted for long periods in Panama. Troops training at Fort Sherman in 1981 contracted it, an exposure that was linked to VEE in 1970, when the military was actively experimenting with VEE. The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research reported:

Quote:An outbreak of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (VEE) occurred in a unit of military personnel who had gone to Panama for jungle training in 1981. Exposure was linked to training in October in an area of Fort Sherman that was previously implicated over ten years ago. An intensive serological survey identified five cases presenting with fever, chills and headaches. VEE remains a threat to U.S. forces deployed to specific areas of Central America.105

In addition, 1977 news accounts cited intelligence sources who claimed that in 1971 U.S. intelligence agents brought Swine flu from Fort Gulick (Espinar) in Panama to Cuba, where the flu apparently contaminated a large number of pigs. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization called the epidemic of swine flu that hit Cuba in 1971 the "most alarming event" of that year. According to the accounts, an intelligence agent was given a sealed unmarked container and instructed to deliver it to an anti-Castro group in Panama. Cuban exiles interviewed for the report said they received the container off Bocas del Toro in Panama and brought it to contacts to the small island of Navassa, whence it was shipped to Cuba in late March 1971. The first Cuban pigs contracted the flu on about May 6.106 Cuban authorities slaughtered half a million pigs in order to contain the epidemic.107

Apart from the above information, however, we have not located documentation of current contamination by military biological agents in Panama. We also have not found documents indicating the testing or use of Agent Orange or other defoliants in Panama, though we do not discount the possibility that defoliants may have been tested there.

In November 1969, President Nixon issued an executive order renouncing the use of all biological warfare agents, effectively ending any lawful development of the agents. The declaration led to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which outlawed efforts to "develop, produce, stockpile, or otherwise acquire or retain" any biological weapons. The United States became one of the first parties to the convention. The U.S. military subsequently converted stockpiled biological agents into harmless fertilizer.

http://www.forusa.org/programs/panama/archives/chem-report/part4.htm

Quote:Research to develop a capability in the covert use of biological and chemical materials. This area involves the production of various physiological conditions which could support present or future clandestine operational. Aside from offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are. For example: we intend to investigate the development of a chemical material which causes a reversible non-toxic aberrant mental state, the specific nature of which can be reasonably well predicted for each individual. this material could potentially aid in discrediting individuals, eliciting information, implanting suggestion and other forms of mental control.

Quote:TAB A

xxxxxxx 87624
Copy # 1 of 5 copies

3 April 1953

MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, Central Intelligence

SUBJECT: Two Extremely Sensitive Research Programs

1. Approximately 6% of the TSS research and development effort lies in two highly sensitive fields in which it is not possible to conduct the work through the customary contracts for security reason and other considerations.

2. These two sensitive fields are:

a) Covert studies of biological and chemical warfare

B ) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3. Permission of the DCI is requested to handle work in these two fields in the manner outlined in Tab A without contracts and with reimbursement to be made against invoices properly certified by TSS.

4. All controls established in the PRC approval of the original Research Program (other than signing a contract) would remain unchanged. Periodic financial and progress reports will be made. All documents will be retained by TSS.

5. No new funds are involved. This procedure would apply to funds xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx previously approved for research.

6. Tab B is a memorandum to the Deputy Director (Administration) for your signature authorizing this procedure.



[Signature]
Richard Helms
Acting Deputy Director (Plans)

Attachments: (2)

Tab A - Description of Project MKULTRA and the controls which will be exercised over its execution

Tab B - Suggested Memorandum from DCI to DD/A authorizing payment of invoices under Project MKULTRA

Distribution:

Addressee - Orig & 1 w/attachments
DD/P - 1 w/attachments
TSS/OC - 1 w/attachments
Exec. REg. - 1 w/attachments

xxxxxxx 87624
Copy # 1 of 5 copies

TAB A

PROJECT MKULTRA

Extremely Sensitive Research and Development Programs

1. On 5 June 1952, the Project Review Committee approved the TSS Research Program for Fiscal Year 1953. [Three lines redacted]

2. The PRC approval authorized the Director of Research, at his discretion and with the approval of the Research Chairman, to apportion and obligate the research funds among individual projects, such projects to be subject to the usual Agency procedures and administrative controls.

3. This Research Program has been actively underway since the middle of 1952 and has gathered considerable momentum during the past few months. It is now evident on the basis of work currently underway that approximately 94% of the projects contemplated can be handled through regular procurement channels by means of customary contracts signed jointly by the Agency and the organization undertaking to carry out the work. It has also become apparent that approximately 6% of the projects are of such ultra-sensitive nature that they cannot and should not be handled by means of contracts which would associate CIA or the Government with the work in question. This 6% of the current research effort now lies entirely within two well-defined fields of endeavor, namely:

(a) Research to develop a capability in the covert use of biological and chemical materials. This area involves the production of various physiological conditions which could support present or future clandestine operational. Aside from offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are. For example: we intend to investigate the development of a chemical material which causes a reversible non-toxic aberrant mental state, the specific nature of which can be reasonably well predicted for each individual. this material could potentially aid in discrediting individuals, eliciting information, implanting suggestion and other forms of mental control.

B ) [10 lines redacted]

4. It is highly undesirable from a policy and security point of view that contracts should be signed indicating Agency or government interest in either of these two fields. In a great many instances the work in field (a) must be conducted by individuals who are not and should not be aware of our interest. In all cases dealing with field (B ), it is mandatory that any connection with the Agency should be known only to an absolute minimum number of people who have been specifically cleared for this purpose. In no case should any manufacturer or supplier be aware of Government interest.

5. In many cases in field (a) where the researcher can be cleared and may be aware of our interest in the program, he is unwilling to have his name on a contract which remains out of his control in his files. Experience has shown that qualified, competent individuals in the field of pharmacological, physiological, psychiatric and other biological sciences are most reluctant to enter into signed agreements of any sort which connect them with this activity since such a connection would jeopardize their professional reputations.

6. Even internally in CIA, as few individuals as possible should be aware of our interest in these fields and of the identity of those who are working for us. At present this results in ridiculous contracts, often with cut-outs, which do not spell out the scope or intent of the work and which contain terms which the cut-out cannot incorporate in his contract with the researcher without revealing Government interest. Complete Government audits of such contracts are impossible for the same reason.

7. It is, therefore, requested that the DCI authorize TSS to handle 6% xxxxxxxx of the previously approved research budget for FY '53 without the establishment of formal contractual relations. This program will be known as Project MKULTRA.

8. It is suggested that payment of invoices under Project MKULTRA forwarded by TSS be authorized, provided that:

(a) the total of such invoices does not exceed 6% for Fiscal Year 1953;

(B ) the invoices carry a certification by the TSS Research Director that payment of funds is authorized and that the invoices represent work accomplished within the program approved by the DCI under Project MKULTRA as outlined in this memorandum;

c ) the invoices carry the certification of the Executive Secretary of the Research Board that the scope of the program has been approved;

(d) the invoices carry the certification of the cognizant TSS Division Chief that the work has been satisfactory from a technical point of view.

9. It should be emphasized that this authorization does not involve any new allocation of funds, but merely applies to a portion of a previously approved budget. The TSS certifications mentioned above will mean that:

(a) the project is being handled under the conditions set forth in this description and specifically falls within one of the two ultra-sensitive field mentioned above;

(B ) the project has been approved in the manner provided for in the PRC document which originally set up and approved the over-all TSS Research Program. Each project will thus have been presented by the Chief of the Division monitoring the work to the Research Director and to the Research Chairman and will have, as in the past, to be approved by both before any expenditures are made;

c ) technical control over the project will be exercised by the TSS Division Chief and Project Engineers to the same extent now applying to projects handled in the normal fashion. Technical reports will be rendered when necessary and advisable and will be available for inspection in TSS files at any time;


(d) in the case of each project, TSS will reach an understanding with the individuals who will perform the work as to the conditions under which the work will be performed and reimbursement arranged. No standard contract will be signed. In some cases when possible, a memorandum of agreement will be signed and retained in the TSS files. Under no circumstances would copies of such agreements leave TSS files where they will be kept available for inspection;

(e) the manner in which the work will be handled and methods of maintaining Agency and Government sterility will be worked out with the Inspection & Security Office as in the past, and clearance of individuals to the extent deemed necessary by TSS and I & SO will be obtained;

(f) invoices, when received by TSS, will be forwarded to Finance Division for payment and will be certified as outlined in Paragraph 8 above. Whenever documents are available supporting a portion or all of a given invoice, such as cancelled checks, receipted bills, etc., these will be requested by TSS and retained in TSS files in support of the invoice, where they will at all times be available for inspection. They will not be forwarded with the invoices. Such documents at best will cover only a portion of the total expenditures, and regular audit procedures will not be followed;

(g) other provisions and controls over the Research Program specified in the original PRC approval will remain unaltered. Technical progress under the separate projects handled under Project MKULTRA will be included whenever necessary in the regular progress reports now submitted by the Director of Research. The monthly budget and financial report being submitted by TSS to DD/A will include full financial information on these projects, including how much of the 6% has been committed, how much has been spent and how much remains.

20. The establishment and approval of Project MKULTRA will allow TSS to undertake highly desirable and necessary research in these two sensitive fields which would not be possible unless the work can be handled in this manner.

Distribution:

Address - Orig. & 1
DD/P - 1
TSS/OC - 1
Exec. Registry - 1

Austin Kelley Wrote:Thank you, Jan- all great stuff.

I'm wondering where specifically this can lead us in deciphering the various techniques of MKULTRA, in particular the reprogramming methodology described in the original post.

Certainly CHATTER, BLUEBIRD, MKULTRA and MKSEARCH explored a wide variety of psychoactive substances that have potential applications for such activity. If I were guessing from what I have seen in the public record, I would wonder what role is played by anticholinergics such as Scopolamine, dissociatives such as PCP and Ketamine, hypnotics such as Benzodiazepines and Opioids, depressants such as Barbituates, stimulants such as Amphetamines, as well as the most commonly mentioned hallucinogens such as LSD and Mescaline.

I should emphasize that the above is mostly educated guesses, based on the little that is really known to me, so if anyone has a more informed opinion on this feel free to share it here.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:...
Somewhere on this site, Magda {I think} had posted a link to a book written by someone who worked on all this. While the book is clearly trying to partly whitewash the worst of the events/crimes etc. [modified-limited hangout], he does seem to mention many important people and places used to testing....can't find the link...can anyone help point to it? Might be helpful to get and apply the negative template, with what we do already know......

Austin Kelley Wrote:Hi-

This article is important enough to motivate me to come out of lurk mode in order to post it. Thanks to all concerned. Excellent work!

Austin


http://www.truthout.org/the-real-roots-cias-rendition-black-sites-program56956

The Real Roots of the CIA's Rendition and Black Sites Program

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by: H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Jeffrey Kaye, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

On Tuesday, February 10, the British High Court finally released a "seven-paragraph court document showing that MI5 officers were involved in the ill-treatment of a British resident, Binyam Mohamed." The document is itself a summary of 42 classified CIA documents given to the British in 2002. .....