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Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of
Central Intelligence
Mr. Chairman: In my letter to you of
July 15, 1977, I reported our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents
related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project conducted from
1953-1964. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella project" under
which certain sensitive subprojects were funded, involving among other
things research on drugs and behavioral modification. During the
Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee investigations in 1975, the
cryptonym became publicly known when details of the drug-related death of
Dr. Frank Olsen were publicized. In 1953 Dr. Olsen, a civilian employee of
the Army at Fort Detrick, leaped to his death from a hotel room window in
New York City about a week after having unwittingly consumed LSD
administered to him as an experiment at a meeting of LSD researchers
called by CIA.
Most of what was known about the Agency's
involvement with behavioral drugs during the investigations in 1975 was
contained in a report on Project MKULTRA prepared by the Inspector
General's office in 1963. As a result of that report's recommendations,
unwitting testing of drugs on U.S. citizens was subsequently discontinued.
The MKULTRA-related report was made available to the Church Committee
investigators and to the staff of Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee on
Health. Until the recent discovery, it was believed that all of the
MKULTRA files dealing with behavioral modification had been destroyed in
1973 on the orders of the then retiring Chief of the Office of Technical
Service, with the authorization of the DCI, as has been previously
reported. Almost all of the people who had had any connection with the
aspects of the project which interested Senate investigators in 1975 were
no longer with the Agency at that time. Thus, there was little detailed
knowledge of the MKULTRA subprojects available to CIA during the Church
Committee investigations. This lack of available details, moreover, was
probably not wholly attributable to the
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destruction of MKULTRA
files in 1973; the 1963 report on MKULTRA by the Inspector General notes
on page 14: "Present practice is to maintain no records of the planning
and approval of test programs."
When I reported to you last on this
matter, my staff had not yet had an opportunity to review the newly
located material in depth. This has now been accomplished, and I am in a
position to give you a description of the contents of the recovered
material. I believe you will be most interested in the following aspects
of the recent discovery:
How the
material was discovered and why it was not previously
found;
The nature of this recently
located material;
How much new
information there is in the material which may not have been previously
known and reported to Senate investigators;
and
What we believe the most
significant aspects of this find to be.
To begin, as to how we
discovered these materials. The material had been sent to our Retired
Records Center outside of Washington and was discovered sent to our
Retired Records Center outside of Washington and was discovered there as a
result of the extensive search efforts of an employee charged with
responsibility for maintaining our holdings on behavioral drugs and for
responding to Freedom of Information Act requests on this subject. During
the Church Committee investigation in 1975, searches for MKULTRA-related
material were made by examining both the active and retired records of all
branches of CIA considered at all likely to have had association with
MKULTRA documents. The retired records of the Budget and Fiscal Section of
the Branch responsible for such work were not searched, however. This was
because financial papers associated with sensitive projects such s MKULTRA
were normally maintained by the Branch itself under the project file, not
by the Budget and Fiscal Section. In the case at hand, however, the newly
located material was sent to the Retired Records Center in 1970 by the
Budget and Fiscal Section as part of its own retired holdings. The reason
for this departure from normal procedure is not known. As a result of it,
however, the material escaped retrieval and destruction in 1973 by the
then-retiring Director of the Office as well as discovery in 1975 by CIA
officials responding to Senate investigators.
The employee who
located this material did so by leaving no stone unturned in his efforts
to respond to FOIA requests. He reviewed all listings of material of this
Branch stored at the Retired Records Center, including those of the Budget
and Fiscal Section and, thus, discovered the MKULTRA-related documents
which had been missed in the previous searches. In sum, the Agency failed
to uncover these particular documents in 1973 in the process of attempting
to destroy them; it similarly failed to locate them in 1975 in response to
the Church Committee hearings. I am convinced that there was no attempt to
conceal this material during the earlier searches.
Next, as to the
nature of the recently located material, it is important to realize that
the recovered folders are finance folders. The bulk of the material in
them consists of approvals for advance of funds, vouchers, accountings,
and the like -- most of which are not very informative as to the nature of
the activities that were undertaken. Occasional project proposals or
memoranda commenting on some aspect of a subproject are scattered
throughout this material. In general, however, the recovered material does
not include status reports or other documents relating to operational
considerations or progress in the various subprojects, though some
elaboration of the activities contemplated does appear. The recovered
documents fall roughly into three
categories:
First, there are 149
MKULTRA subprojects, many of which appear to have some connection with
research into behavioral modification, drug acquisition and testing or
administering drugs
surreptitiously.
Second, there are
two boxes of miscellaneous MKULTRA papers, including audit reports and
financial statements from "cut-out" (i.e., intermediary) funding
mechanisms used to conceal CIA's sponsorship of various research
projects.
Finally, there are 33
additional subprojects concerning certain intelligence activities
previously funded under MKULTRA which have nothing to do either with
behavioral modification, drugs, and toxins or with any other related
matters.
We have attempted to group the activities covered by the
149 subprojects into categories under descriptive headings. In broad
outline, at least, this presents the contents of these files. The
activities are placed in the following 15 categories:
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1.
Research into the effects of behavioral drugs and/or
alcohol:
17 subprojects probably not
involving human testing;
14
subprojects definitely involving tests on human
volunteers;
19 subprojects probably
including tests on human volunteers. While not known, some of these
subprojects may have included tests on unwitting subjects as
well;
6 subprojects involving tests
on unwitting subjects.
2. Research on hypnosis: 8
subprojects, including 2 involving hypnosis and drugs in
combination.
3. Acquisition of chemicals or drugs:
7 subprojects.
4. Aspects of magicians' art useful
in covert operations: e.g., surreptitious delivery of drug-related
materials: 4 subprojects.
5. Studies of human
behavior, sleep research, and behavioral changes during psychotherapy: 9
subprojects.
6. Library searches and attendance at
seminars and international conferences on behavioral modification: 6
subprojects.
7. Motivational studies, studies of
defectors, assessment, and training techniques: 23
subprojects.
8. Polygraph research: 3
subprojects.
9. Funding mechanisms for MKULTRA
external research activities: 3 subprojects.
10.
Research on drugs, toxins, and biologicals in human tissue; provision of
exotic pathogens and the capability to incorporate them in effective
delivery systems: 6 subprojects.
11. Activities
whose objectives cannot be determined from available documentation: 3
subprojects.
12. Subprojects involving funding
support for unspecified activities connected with the Army's Special
Operations Division at Fr. Detrick, Md. This activity is outline in Book I
of the Church Committee Report, pp. 388-389. (See Appendix
A, pp. 68-69.) Under CIA's Project MKNAOMI, the Army Assisted CIA in
developing, testing, and maintaining biological agents and delivery
systems for use against humans as well as against animals and crops. The
objectives of these subprojects cannot be identified from the recovered
material beyond the fact that the money was to be used where normal
funding channels would require more written or oral justification than
appeared desirable for security reasons or where operational
considerations dictated short lead times for purchases. About $11,000 was
involved during this period 1953-1960: 3
subprojects.
13. Single subprojects in such areas
as effects of electro-shock, harassment techniques for offensive use,
analysis of extrasensory perception, gas propelled sprays and aerosols,
and four subprojects involving crop and material
sabotage.
14. One or two subprojects on each of
the following:
"Blood Grouping"
research, controlling the activity of animals, energy storage and transfer
in organic systems; and
stimulus and
response in biological systems.
15. Three
subprojects canceled before any work was done on them having to do with
laboratory drug screening, research on brain concussion, and research on
biologically active materials to be tested through the skin on human
volunteers.
Now, as to how much new the recovered material adds to
what has previously been reported to the Church Committee and to Senator
Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health on these topics, the answer is additional
detail, for the most part: e.g., the names of previously unidentified
researchers and institutions associated on either a witting or unwitting
basis with MKULTRA activities, and the names of CIA officials who approved
or monitored the various subprojects. Some new substantive material is
also present: e.g., details concerning proposals for experimentation and
clinical testing associated with various research projects, and a possibly
improper contribution by CIA to a private institution. However, the
principal types of activities included have, for the most part, either
been outlined to some extent or generally described in what was previously
available to CIA in the way of documentation and was supplied by CIA to
Senate investigators. For example:
Financial disbursement records
for the period 1960-1964 for 76 of the 149 numbered MKULTRA subprojects
had been recovered from the Office of Finance by CIA and were made
available to the Church Committee investigators in August or September
1975.
The 1963 Inspector General report on MKULTRA made available
to both the Church Committee and Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee mentions
electro-shock
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and
harassment substances (pp. 4, 16); covert testing on unwitting U.S.
citizens (pp. 7, 10-12); the search for new materials through arrangements
with specialists in universities, pharmaceutical houses, hospitals, state
and federal institutions, and private research organizations (pp. 7, 9);
and the fact that the Technical Service Division of CIA had initiated 144
subprojects related to the control of human behavior between 1953-1963 (p.
21).
The relevant section of a 1957 Inspector General report on the
Technical Service Division was also made available to the Church Committee
staff. That report discusses techniques for human assessment and
unorthodox methods of communication (p. 201); discrediting and disabling
materials which can be covertly administered (pp. 201-202); studies on
magicians' arts as applied to covert operations (p. 202); specific funding
mechanisms for research performed outside of CIA (pp. 202-203, 205);
research being done on "K" (knockout) material, alcohol tolerance, and
hypnotism (p. 203); research on LSD (p. 204); anti-personnel harassment
and assassination delivery systems including aerosol generators and other
spray devices (pp. 206-208); the role of Fort Detrick in support of CIA's
Biological/Chemical Warfare capability (p. 208); and material sabotage
research (p. 209). Much of this material is reflected in the Church
Committee Report, Book I, pp. 385-422. (See Appendix
A, pp. 65-102).
The most significant new data discovered are,
first, the names of researchers and institutions who participated in the
MKULTRA project and, secondly, a possibly improper contribution by CIA to
a private institution. We are now in possession of the names of 185
non-government researchers and assistants who are identified in the
recovered material dealing with the 149 subprojects. The names of 80
institutions where work was done or with which these people were
affiliated are also mentioned.
The institutions include 44 colleges
or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical
companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those
associated with universities), and 3 penal institutions. While the
identities of some of these people and institutions were known previously,
the discovery of the new identities adds to our knowledge of
MKULTRA.
The facts as they pertain to the possibly improper
contribution are as follows: One project involves a contribution of
$375,000 to a building fund of a private medical institution. The fact
that a contribution was made was previously known; indeed it was mentioned
in a 1957 Inspector General report on the Technical Service Division of
CIA, pertinent portions of which had been reviewed by the Church Committee
staff. The newly discovered material, however, makes it clear that this
contribution was made through an intermediary, which made it appear to be
a private donation. As a private donation, the contribution was then
matched by federal funds. The institution was not made aware of the true
source of the gift. This project was approved by the then DCI, and
concurred in by CIA's top management at the time, including the then
General Counsel who wrote an opinion supporting the legality of the
contribution.
The recently discovered documents give a greater
insight into the scope of the unwitting drug testing but contribute little
more than that. We now have collaborating information that some of the
unwitting drug testing was carried on in safehouses in San Francisco and
New York City, and we have identified that three individuals were involved
in this undertaking as opposed to the previously reported one person. We
also know now that some unwitting testing took place on criminal sexual
psychopaths confined at a State hospital and that, additionally, research
was done on knock-out or "K" drug in parallel with research to develop
pain killers for cancer patients.
These, then are the principal
findings identified to date in our review of the recovered material. As
noted earlier, we believe the detail on the identities of researchers and
institutions involved in CIA's sponsorship of drugs and behavioral
modification is a new element and one which poses a considerable problem.
Most of the people and institutions involved are not aware of Agency
sponsorship. We should certainly assume that the researchers and
institutions which cooperate with CIA on a witting basis acted in good
faith and in the belief that they were aiding their government in a
legitimate and proper purpose. I believe we all have a moral obligation to
these researchers and institutions to protect them from any unjustified
embarrassment or damage to their reputations which revelation of their
identities might bring. In addition, I have a legal obligation under the
Privacy Act not to publicly disclose the names of the individual
researchers without their consent. This is especially true, of course,
for
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those researchers and
institutions which were unwitting participants in CIA-sponsored
activities.
Nevertheless, recognizing the right and the need of
both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate
Subcommittee on Health to investigate the circumstances of these
activities in whatever detail they consider necessary. I am providing your
Committee with all of the names on a classified basis. I hope that this
will facilitate your investigation while protecting the individuals and
institutions involved. Let me emphasize that the MKULTRA events are 12 to
25 years in the past. I assure you that the CIA is in no way engaged in
either witting or unwitting testing of drugs today.
Finally, I am
working closely with the Attorney General and with the Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare on this matter. We are making available to
the Attorney General whatever materials he may deem necessary to any
investigation he may elect to undertake. We are working with both the
Attorney General and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to
determine whether it is practicable from this new evidence to attempt to
identify any of the persons to whom drugs may have been administered
unwittingly. No such names are part of these records, but we are working
to determine if there are adequate clues to lead to their identification;
and if so, how to go about fulfilling the Government's responsibilities in
the matter.
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Testimony of CIA Director Stansfield Turner
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Opening Remarks
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