MKULTRA: Revealing the Rights and Responsibilities of the CIA

Ingrid Song, Taseen Alam, Angela Zhao Senior Division Group Website Ingrid Song, Taseen Alam, Angela Zhao

Senior Group Website NHD 2014 Process Paper One cannot procure an NHD project without obtaining a topic. Our group sought an outside-the-box topic for the theme of rights and responsibility. We looked at examples of human experimentation out of curiosity, and MKULTRA reared its head. We considered multiple other topics, including Vietnam War drafting, the Stanford Prison Experiment, Dr. Mengele, the Human Genome Project, and the Watergate scandal. After deliberation, we returned to our original idea - Project MKULTRA. It turned out that not only did MKULTRA occur relatively recently, but encompassed the rights and responsibilities of quite a few parties, from the CIA to experiment subjects. Another NHD essential is research. Initially, we doubted whether MKULTRA was even real due to the conspiracy websites that showed up when we first began our research. A little more digging, however, revealed several government documents. One of the first primary resources we discovered was a transcript of the Congressional Hearing of 1977 which had a great deal of MKULTRA-related information. Within the hearing, Senator Edward Kennedy outlined the issues MKULTRA brought to government attention. Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, (representative of the CIA), revealed the information found relevant to MKULTRA. He testified that the CIA had ceased experimentation on humans. With that, the movement holding the CIA responsible to certain standards when experimenting on humans officially commenced. In addition, newspaper articles from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others, provided valuable information not just of the experiments, but also the attitude the media and citizens had towards the project. Also important was the Final Report of the Church Committee. The Church Committee studied government intelligence operations and was initiated to observe suspicious CIA activities, such as MKULTRA. Their report, being the one that exposed MKULTRA, was very informative and provided confirmation and clarification to much of the information obtained from other sources. Picking the medium for our project was one of the easiest parts of creating the project. Two members of our group, Ingrid and Taseen, had prior success with websites, having reached States and Nationals, respectively. With that decision done, the project had to actually be created. First, data compiled from various sources was put on a Google Doc -- essentially a script for the website. After sufficient information was gathered, the script was put onto the website. Pictures and additional information were added as needed. Sources were placed on the bibliography as they were found and used. The topic of MKULTRA fit well with the theme of rights and responsibilities. For starters, the CIA, which funded experiments, had the responsibility of developing means of American defense. However, they didnt have the rights to experiment with drugs upon unwitting people.

Also, they had the responsibility of giving the government information. The exposure of MKULTRA led to discussions and reform of the CIA as well as the reinforcement of the concept that here in the United States, the end never justifies the means.