Was Jonestown a CIA medical experiment?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in Indianapolis

as above

[This caught my eye because I thought I remembered a reference in Albarelli to an MK-Ultra experiment run in Indianapolis. I can't quickly find the reference, but I'm still reading and digesting the sizable tome. -- EJ]

Pages 153-154 of Albarelli note the history and memoranda surrounding the use of Eli Lilly and Company of Indiana were, as early as October 1954, working with the technical services to be an alternative, in-country source for LSD for the CIA's MK-Ultra "in tonnage quantities". Page 154 notes Lilly's intent to study the effects of LSD "via the electroencephalographic techniques....".

Hmm - back in the 1950s, this means sticking electrodes into living brains to measure EEG patterns.

The abstract below is from 1965, and is experimentation on cats.

Behavioral and electroencephalographic effects of LSD
Z. P. Horovitz, M. I. Mulroy, T. Waldron, R. Leaf
Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Volume 54, Issue 1, pages 108–110, January 1965
Abstract
D-Lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate (LSD) was evaluated in cats with permanently implanted electrodes for effects on behavior-EEG correlations and on rates of responding for electrical stimulation to the lateral hypothalamus (self-stimulation) and responding for milk reward. Doses of 10 and 15 mcg./Kg. of LSD intraperitoneally increased responding for lateral hypothalamic self-stimulation, stimulated observable behavior, and caused a low-voltage fast cortical EEG to predominate. A dose of 25 mcg./Kg. of LSD produced slight decreases in self-stimulation responding. It also caused disorientation, howling, and periodic pacing and staring. This behavior was associated with a change in EEG pattern toward a slow-wave high-voltage response.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...5/abstract

This one is 1955, and is experimentation on rabbits, and probably extrapolated only to human behaviour:

Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease:
November 1955 - Volume 122 - Issue 5 - ppg 424-432
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: PDF Only
The Cerebral Electrographic Changes Induced By Lsd and Mescaline Are Corrected By Frenquel

First page of paper can be seen at link below:

http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Citation/1...Lsd.2.aspx

However, even if electrodes haven't been stuck in living human brains, this paper reveals mescaline and LSD clearly have been given to humans who have then been studied by doctors. Also, the references at the end of the first paragraph suggests EEG measurements have been made on living human brains.

The young Reverend Jim Jones kept monkeys and worked in black communities.

I've long suspected the monkeys were used in experimentation - maybe directly by Jones, or maybe as cast offs from laboratory experimentation. However, as the later history of the People's Temple and Jonestown clearly demonstrates, Jones regarded his black flock as experimental subjects. Maybe he started experimenting much earlier than previously expected.

A man of the cloth working with poor blacks would have perfect cover for Tuskegee type covert experimentation. Ie the Tuskegee MO: pretend you're offering medical treatment when in fact you're running a secret experiment on your subjects.

Also, at Jonestown, secret medical records of each subject were meticulously kept and ID wristbands were worn:

At the scene, bodies were stripped of identification, including the medical wrist tags visible in many early photos.

According to survivors' reports, they entered a virtual slave
labor camp. Worked for 16 to 18 hours daily, they were forced to
live in cramped quarters on minimum rations, usually rice, bread
and sometimes rancid meat. Kept on a schedule of physical and
mental exhaustion, they were also forced to stay awake at night
and listen to lectures by Jones. Threats and abuse became more
common.[159] The camp medical staff under Dr. Lawrence Schacht was
known to perform painful suturing without anaesthetic. They
administered drugs, and kept daily medical records.[160]
Infractions of the rules or disloyalty led to increasingly harsh
punishments, including forced drugging, sensory isolation in an
underground box, physical torture and public sexual rape and
humiliation. Beatings and verbal abuse were commonplace. Only the
special guards were treated humanely and fed decently.[161]

On the scene at Jonestown, Guyanese troops discovered a large
cache of drugs, enough to drug the entire population of
Georgetown, Guyana (well over 200,000)[177] for more than a year.
According to survivors, these were being used regularly "to
control" a population of only 1,100 people.[178] One footlocker
contained 11,000 doses of thorazine, a dangerous tranquilizer.
Drugs used in the testing for MK-ULTRA were found in abundance,
including sodium pentathol (a truth serum), chloral hydrate (a
hypnotic), demerol, thalium (confuses thinking), and many
others.[179] Schacht had supplies of haliopareael and largatil as
well, two other major tranquilizers.[180] The actual description
of life at Jonestown is that of a tightly run concentration camp,
complete with medical and psychiatric experimentation. The
stresses and isolation of the victims is typical of sophisticated
brainwashing techniques. The drugs and special tortures add an
additional experimental aspect to the horror.[181] This more
clearly explains the medical tags on the bodies, and why they had
to be removed. It also suggests an additional motive for
frustrating any chemical autopsies, since these drugs would have
been found in the system of the dead.

Note also the presence of orphans in the California People's Temple. Orphans were frequently used as human guinea pigs in covert experimentation:

With his new wealth, Jones was able to travel to California and
establish the first People's Temple in Ukiah, California, in 1965.
Guarded by dogs, electric fences and guard towers, he set up Happy
Havens Rest Home.[98] Despite a lack of trained personnel, or
proper licensing, Jones drew in many people at the camp. He had
elderly, prisoners, people from psychiatric institutions, and 150
foster children, often transferred to care at Happy Havens by
court orders.[99] He was contacted there by Christian missionaries
from World Vision, an international evangelical order that had
done espionage work for the CIA in Southeast Asia.[100] He met
"influential" members of the community and was befriended by
Walter Heady, the head of the local chapter of the John Birch
Society.[101]

All these excerpts above are from John Judge's "The Black Hole of Guyana: The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre".

See also:

The (People's) Temple also used electroshock treatments to modify the behavior of the children entrusted to their care. In a locked room of the San Francisco Temple was a machine that only the children to be disciplined and an attending nurse were allowed to see. The machine was named "The Blue-Eyed Monster" though later reports referred to it as "The Blue-Eyed Demon". Some said this Aryan devil was a simple cattle prod, others claimed it was a heart defibrulator or the shock treatment machine the Temple had acquired from Mendocino State Hospital. Few children would describe the apparatus; but those who did said it was a scaled-down version of an executioner's electric chair. The child was strapped into the metal chair and electrodes were attached to various parts of his or her body. Though the machine itself was hidden from the general adult congregation, Jones would call out the names of those children to be disciplined and they would be taken into the Blue-Eyed Monster's den. A microphone, attached to the public address system, was placed in the room. The general congregation heard no noises from the machine only the screams of the children attached to it. The child emerged from the room and ran to Jim Jones; grovelling at his feet to say "Thank you - Thank you" in robot-like repetition.

Later, in Jonestown, the physical beating and shock treatments of the Temple children were replaced with sheer terror in the form of "Big Foot"; a monster that Jones told them lived in a shallow well on the outskirts of the jungle community. Children who misbehaved were lowered into the well, where, unknown to them, adults were hiding in the darkness. The adults made animal sounds and grabbed at the child's dangling legs in a feigned attempt to pull him into the abyss.

[p388-9, Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?, Michael Meiers]