Was Jonestown a CIA medical experiment?

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Interesting also to note that there was another significant person besides Mitrione involved in the CIA's Latin American rent a cop program that was the Office of Public Safety: Many Pena, of Special Unit Senator fame.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Some tangential but intriguing material on Jonestown, Grenada and the Bourne Identity from Wayne Madsen.

The Jonestown deprogrammer mentioned by Madsen is probably Keith Harary, who was deeply involved in some of the notorious remote viewing programmes - both mil intel and SRI.

Rather surreally, through a scanner darkly, the "psychic spies" extensively remote viewed the constructed urban terror experiment known as the Symbionese Liberation Army, and checked the accuracy of their remote viewing data with official police accounts.

Extract from Madsen's piece:

Behavioral science, the CIA, and SRI

A formerly Secret NOFORN [not releasable to foreign nationals] proposal for the CIA, dated December 31, 1992, and prepared for the CIA by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) describes in great detail the agency’s behavioral science programs, which included anomalous cognition (AC) and anomalous perturbation (AP). AC is defined as “the awareness of information that is considered otherwise shielded from all known sensory channels” and AP is “the perturbation of physical matter under conditions of complete physical and sensorial isolation.”

The document states that research into both field began in 1973 with the CIA engaged in such research and was followed by U.S. military service and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) research with SRI through fiscal year 1990. The document also states “beginning in 1986, the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) [Fort Detrick, Maryland] initiated the first coordinated long-term examination of AC and AP phenomenon.”

SAIC proposed to conduct various research projects for the CIA are similar to some of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used on detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, and other CIA “black sites” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The experiments, conducted by SRI since 1974, included exposing individuals to flashing light or no light to discover how their central nervous systems reacted to the visual stimuli. Experiment subjects were fitted with EEGs (electroencephalogram) monitors to measure their reaction to the flashing light stimuli. Part of the SAIC proposal remains redacted.

A sub-contractor to SAIC was the Lucidity Institute of Napa, California, founded in 1987 by Dr. Stephen LaBerge for the conduct of ”research on lucid dreams and to help people learn to use them to enhance their lives. Lucid dreaming means dreaming while knowing that one is dreaming and allows people to consciously guide the direction of their dreams.” Ironically, one of this summer’s blockbuster movies, “Inception,” dealt with the subject of invading people’s dreams to steal secrets. Leonardo DeCaprio plays a secretive agent named Dorn Cobb who is an “extractor” agent operating in the para-psychological dream invasion program. What may be fiction in Hollywood was far from it in the CIA research with SAIC, SRI, and the Lucidity Institute.

One of the methods used by the SRI and SAIC program to determine “the differences between effective and ineffective liars” was called the Q-Sort technique. The technique was used to separate “highly talented” individuals in test “clusters.”

The paragraph on the intelligence applications of anomalous cognition is 90 percent redacted from the SAIC proposal as are at least three reference works cited in the document. Academic institutions involved in the project included, in addition to SRI, Stanford University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, and UCLA (one of Helms’s favorite CIA behavioral science research centers).

The CIA-SAIC-SRI project principals had either worked at or attended the Biofeedfack Institute of San Francisco; SAIC; Yale (another of Helms’s favored research centers); Columbia University; Harvard; Bellevue Hospital in New York; the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the Stanford Hypnosis Research Laboratory; Carnegie-Mellon University; MIT (another one of Helms’s favored behavioral science centers); the World Bank; the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; University of Minnesota; the Brain Research Institute; the Behavioral Research Foundation of St. Kitts, West Indies; the Tavistock Institute in London; the A.K. Rice Institute of Rainier, Washington, an off-shoot of the Tavistock Institute; Sleep Disorders Clinic, Provo, Utah; Neurology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland; Tibetan government-in-exile, Dharamsala, India; U.S. Veterans Administration; University of Wisconsin-Madison; US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC; and perhaps, most interestingly, the University of Hawaii (also designated by Helms as one of the CIA’s favored behavioral science research centers and where two of the principals involved in the SAIC-CIA project had an affiliation).

The research director for the CIA-SAIC program was Dr. Edwin C. May, an internationally-recognized parapsychology expert who is the executive director for the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory of the Laboratories for Fundamental Research in Palo Alto, California. May was a lead researcher for the CIA’s STARGATE remote viewing and ESP project until it was closed down in 1995. WMR has previously reported that the program moved from the CIA to the National Security Agency and involved research carried out with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia, south of Charlottesville The Monroe Institute was also heavily involved in the STARGATE program. The current research is also linked to the Parapsychology Foundation of New York City.

Other members of the team included a retired Army Major General who now specializes in human bionics a radio astrophysicist; an expert who maintains that sexual orientation may be influenced by experiences in childhood; a counselor for survivors of the People’s Temple cult of Reverend Jim Jones (itself linked to a CIA MK-ULTRA behavioral modification and mind control operation); a current specialist with the Farsight Institute of Atlanta, a remote viewing research center; a neuro-linguistic programming expert; a toxicology specialist; a principal of the Pentagon’s PANDORA project on the use of electro-magnetic weapons to roboticize human beings; an expert in the imaging and computer mapping of the human brain; an inventor of the cochlear implant; an expert on the mass popular opposition of Okinawans to the U.S. military presence on the island; a future warfare expert for the Pentagon and member of the National Security Agency Scientific Advisory Board and Defense Intelligence Agency Scientific Advisory Committee; a former Army Undersecretary for acquisition; a Defense Intelligence Agency psi-tech officer who worked on electro-magnetic weaponry for battlefield psychological purposes – PROJECT SLEEPING BEAUTY – who worked with another Army Intelligence psi-tech officer who was partially the inspiration for the movie “Men Who Stare At Goats;” a specialist on the brainwashing techniques, including sleep deprivation, by the North Koreans on American prisoners of war and the Church of Scientology who was an expert witness on the brainwashing techniques of the Symbionese Liberation Army on heiress Patty Hearst; and, lastly, a University of Hawaii-linked specialist on the psychological effects of prison and prison brutality on prisoners who later defended, as an expert witness, one of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad.

The presence of a Jonestown de-programmer on the CIA-SAIC team in noteworthy. On August 31, 2007, WMR reported: “During the time of the Jonestown massacre, the People’s Temple’s ship, the ‘Cudjoe,’ was en route to Trinidad with members of the Temple on board. Temple members soon set up operations in Trinidad and Grenada, where [Prime Minister Eric] Gairy, a CIA client, who, in a 1977 speech before the UN General Assembly, called for the UN to establish an Agency for Psychic Research into Unidentified Flying Objects and the Bermuda Triangle, was in charge. According to the Oakland Tribune, the St. George’s University Medical School in Grenada had on its staff one Dr. Peter Bourne, the son of the university’s vice chancellor Sir Geoffrey Bourne. Peter Bourne is a graduate of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where he studied the psychological effects of stress on those in combat. He also served one year in Vietnam as the head of the Army’s psychiatric research team. Bourne later became an Assistant UN Secretary General and an adviser to then-Congressman Bill Richardson. It was under the guise of rescuing American medical students at the university, that the Reagan administration launched a 1983 invasion to overthrow Bernard Coard, who had ousted and executed Bishop in a coup. Both Bournes said the medical students were never in any danger. [Some believe that author Robert Ludlum got the idea for CIA mind-controlled assassins in his novel "The Bourne Identity" and its sequels from Geoffrey Bourne's work.]

The Jonestown connection to the U.S. war in Southeast Asia does not end there. The U.S. ambassador to Guyana at the time of the Jonestown massacre was John Burke, who served with his Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer, were allegedly working for the CIA in Bangkok during the Vietnam war. Dwyer was wounded in the Port Kaituma shootings where [Representative Leo] Ryan and the others were killed. On Sept. 27, 1980, Jack Anderson reported that Dwyer was a CIA agent and a friend of Jones. Anderson reported that on one of the tapes made during the mass suicide Jones was heard saying, ‘Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him.’ Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for Grenada after the massacre. The US Consular Officer at the embassy in Georgetown, Guyana was Richard McCoy, who allegedly liaised with Jim Jones and was a U.S. Air Force intelligence official. Another alleged CIA employee, operating under State Department cover, was Dan Webber, who also visited the Jonestown the day after the massacre. Joe Holsinger, Ryan’s assistant and friend, later said that he believed that Jonestown was a massive mind control experiment and that the CIA and military intelligence was involved in the program.”

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2010/09/the...ny-part-v/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Short Youtube clip of John Judge speaking about the gunshot wounds on the Jonestown corpses, and the Grenada mental hospital connections in the aftermath.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hnAykonktA

Anyone running a scientific experiment, even a pseudo one, needs to collect, study and analyze the data.

The Nazis did this with, for instance, their hypothermia and altitude experimentation on Dachau inmates. One of the lead Nazi doctors, Hubertus Strughold, was Paperclipped to Texas in the immediate aftermath of WW2, where he was made Professor of Aviation.

Jonestown was, in essence, a covert medical and psychological experiment on human guinea pigs.

[David Guyatt]

Judge's clip is well worth listening to.

I had no idea that poor black people were effectively state kidnapped and shipped to Jonestown, gagged and bound, to be experimented upon.

And the Nazi connection re Dr. Lawrence Schacht was an eye-opener for me also.

[Jan Klimkowski]

David - there's more flesh on the bones regarding these matters in John Judge's article reproduced in post #12 in this thread.

[David Guyatt]

Thanks Jan. I missed a lot when I was absent and need to get back up to speed (time permitting). I'm a fan of John Judge so I'll definitely take a gander.

[Ed Jewett]

Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in Indianapolis

25th November 2010

” … In 1961, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones to be director of the city’s Human Rights Commission. … “

Cult leader who convinced 900 followers to commit suicide started his church in Indianapolis.

By Michael Jesse | Indianapolis Star| November 18, 2010

The stories of apocalyptic cult leaders don’t often end well, especially for their most devoted followers. In the case of a preacher from Indianapolis named Jim Jones, the story ended with the deaths of more than 900 people — most of them by suicide.

That was on Nov. 18, 1978, in Guyana, South America, where Jones and his flock had built a community nicknamed “Jonestown.” In the days that followed, Americans followed the news in horror as photos and video from helicopters showed a panorama of dead bodies sprawled and already bloated in the tropical sun.

Jones’ early ministry in Indianapolis

Somehow all of this had its origin in Indianapolis in the early 1950s, where Jones started his ministry. He grew up in the Richmond area, started college at Indiana University, graduated from Butler and was ordained by the Disciples of Christ.

The first time he shows up in The Indianapolis Star’s archives is in 1953, when he was 22 years old and a student pastor at Somerset Methodist Church on the city’s Southside. The story describes a dynamic young minister working with orphans at the Marion County Children’s Guardian Home, where he organized softball games and picnics and arranged transportation so all of the kids could come to his church on Sundays. Perhaps the most compelling photo of Jones found in The Star’s files shows him singing with a group of children from the guardian home.

Jones was back in the newspaper in 1954 in a bizarre story involving imported monkeys. According to the story, he had been importing monkeys from India and South America to sell as a fundraiser for his church. The story ran with a photo of Jones holding two of the little monkeys.

Founding of the People’s Temple

After being affiliated with several different Indianapolis churches, Jones started his own congregation in 1955. At first they met at 1502 N. New Jersey, but as the congregation grew it moved to a larger building at 975 N. Delaware, just south of 10th Street. Jones named his new church The People’s Temple.

In those early years of his ministry, Jones seemed to truly walk the walk. He set up a soup kitchen that fed the homeless not just once or twice a week but feeding hundreds every day. He organized an employment assistance service in which church members helped the jobless find work and gave them decent clothes to wear to job interviews. Jones and his wife, Marceline, adopted eight children of all races.

The healing of America’s divide between blacks and whites was always at the core of Jones’ message, and the People’s Temple reflected that in the diversity of its congregation — a rarity then and even 30 years later.

In 1961, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones to be director of the city’s Human Rights Commission, which had been created to address racial problems in Indianapolis. Boswell later said Jones helped pressure certain store owners and theater managers to be more welcoming of black customers.

Jones’ focus on racial integration stirred up a backlash among some whites and the newspapers reported on harassment of Jones and his flock. Marceline was reportedly spat on as she walked with a black child.

As the People’s Temple grew, Jones’ preaching style became more messianic and more based on his own word than Biblical scriptures. Some members began to leave the church while others became more fervently devoted to Jones.

Like other Pentecostal preachers, Jones sometimes performed faith healings. At first these were of the sort where a person’s strength of faith could make him feel stronger and less burdened by pain. After a while, however, Jones started pulling cancerous tumors right out of people’s mouths right there in front of the congregation.

One former Temple member later told The Star that the “tumors” were just chicken livers Jones palmed like a magician who seems to pull a coin out of a child’s ear. Whatever may have been in Jones’ heart at the beginning of his ministry had been replaced by something that he knew was a lie.

Leaving Indiana

During the last few years before the People’s Temple left Indianapolis for California, Jones was often gone. He spent a lot of time in Brazil where the church was supporting mission work, but he also had another reason: He now believed (or said he believed) that the world was coming to an end and that the end would come in the form of a nuclear holocaust. In the early 1960s, this was not necessarily a crazy idea given the massive buildup of missiles between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which they had aimed at each other. Jones was interested in Brazil because he’d read it was one of the places on the planet where people were most likely to survive if the Cold War turned hot.

When he came back to Indianapolis, Jones told his congregation they were moving. Not to South America — not yet anyway — but to California. In 1965, Jones and 145 Indianapolis residents got on buses and left Indiana. It would later be revealed that Jones made each of them sign over to him all of their worldly possessions. Not many owned their own homes, but they gave over their savings, furniture – even their Social Security checks.

The People’s Temple settled in a little town called Ukiah, about 150 miles north of San Francisco and for the next several years most people in Indianapolis forgot all about Jones.

About 145 Hoosiers followed Jones west, leaving behind friends and family members who lost their infatuation with the man who used to say “just call me Jim” but later turned to having his followers call him “the Prophet.” In 1972, Star reporter Carolyn Pickering heard from one such family and began looking into their stories. The Star published a series that year in which Pickering reported on claims of brainwashing, intimidation and the constant flow of money and property. She looked into local records and found that Jones owned several properties in Indianapolis; some in his own name and others in the names of his wife, mother or business entities he had incorporated.

The Star wasn’t the only news organization to report these stories, but nothing seemed to come of any of the exposes. Jones was now 41 and had become an expert at controlling people — and not just his own followers. In Ukiah, he worked his way into influence within local government and law enforcement. He showed politicians and business owners that he could just as easily produce an angry crowd of protesters as he could a wave of supporters who would shop and vote as he directed them to. Newspaper editors received a flood of letters from Jones’ supporters who alleged that those quoted in the stories were drug addicts, liars or con artists.

By the late 1970s, Jones was making arrangements to move his church out of the United States and he picked a spot in Guyana, South America. There, he employed the same tactics of bribing local officials to gain their collaboration.

The day it ended

It all began to fall apart in November 1978, when California congressman Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate allegations made by relatives of some of Jones’ followers. While there, he announced that anyone wanting to leave could accompany him on the flight back to California. Several people took him up on the offer, but as they reached the air strip where the plane waited shooting erupted. Ryan was killed, along with several others.

Back at the compound, Jones gathered the faithful and told them it was time to die. They had prepared for this day, even rehearsed it. They brought out big tubs in which they mixed the cyanide in with a powdered grape drink similar to Kool-Aid, and one by one they drank it and died. Not everyone took it willingly. Some were forced to drink it, and those who resisted were shot. A small few survived by fleeing into the jungle.

Jim Jones died there, too, shooting himself after killing his wife and one of his children. It was rumored that Jones had escaped, but when the bodies were brought back to the U.S., fingerprints taken from Jones’ body confirmed that it was really him.

http://www.indystar.com/article/99999999...6/80519046


found at http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/a...dianapolis


[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]

[Ed Jewett]

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....".

[Keith Millea]

LSD for the CIA's MK-Ultra "in tonnage quantities".

Excuse me Ed;HOLY FUCKING SHIT....

[Ed Jewett]

Keep in mind that I am not that much deeper in the book (stunningly good, review forthcoming), that the tonnage issue is disputable despite the written reference inside the quoted memorandum; it was likely a blend between possible capacity and wishful thinking by the mad men in the program.

The information about the Pont D'Espirit incident etc. awaits me in later pages.

What might be appreciated as a certain amount of hyperbole with regards to the entire experience of the lysergic experimentation and research is, for me, thus far in the book, dwarfed by Albarelli's extensive discussion of and evidence for the depth, history and techniques of the warped and forged logic, the use of corporate cover and involvement, and the ability to create legend and false historical identity and cover by the intelligence agencies of the state. It illuminates much of what we wonder about here.