activistpost--2020-09-08--Why Aren’t Insurers 9/11 Truthers? James Corbett Investigates

As we approach the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 false flag , Leonard writes in to ask about the insurers who paid Silverstein and his cohorts over four and a half billion dollars as a result of those attacks .
Why did the insurers never investigate the possibility of controlled demolition ?
Why did they pay out billions of dollars without calling the official 9/11 narrative into question ?
Watch on Archive / BitChute / LBRY / Minds.com / YouTube or Download the mp4 • Insurers Agree to Pay Billions at Ground Zero • Silverstein says WTC7 redesign ready in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against Silverstein and Citigroup at 7 WTC dismissed • Silverstein cleared of blame for 7 World Trade ’ s fall on 9/11 • 10 Major Shareholders in Swiss Re ( is actually one ) • Meet The Billionaire Developer Who Rebuilt The World Trade Center To Heal New York After 9/11 • The Bonds of August : Refinancing the Twin Towers on the eve of destruction Visit James Corbett at CorbettReport.com .
Subscribe to his channel on YouTube and Bitchute , and support him on Patreon .
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By The Corbett Report
As we approach the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 false flag, Leonard writes in to ask about the insurers who paid Silverstein and his cohorts over four and a half billion dollars as a result of those attacks.
Why did the insurers never investigate the possibility of controlled demolition?
Why did they pay out billions of dollars without calling the official 9/11 narrative into question?
James investigates.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / LBRY / Minds.com / YouTube or Download the mp4
SHOW NOTES:
Visit James Corbett at CorbettReport.com. Subscribe to his channel on YouTube and Bitchute, and support him on Patreon.
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activistpost--2020-09-08--Despite Being Warned, FCC Chair Ignores Numerous Red Flags and Cites False Broadband Data

The Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) is supposed to protect Americans by regulating the telecom industry .
Their history of catering to the industry at the expense of the public pre-dates the Trump administration .
Current chairman , Ajit Pai , refers to their approach as being “ not heavy handed ” and the agency has , unfortunately , become more despicable ( see 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ) .
Despite research proving harm , they refuse to update 24-year old federal RF radiation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against them for NOT protecting Americans from unsafe levels of radiation as well as 5G deployment on land ( see 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ) and in space .
Federal agencies and other experts have also warned that 5G can threaten national security , public safety , and weather forecasting accuracy ( see 1 , 2 , 3 ) .
The FCC has dismissed all of this .
Now Pai is being called out AGAIN for misleading Americans at the expense of Americans .
Officials had worried about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has proposed fining internet provider BarrierFree for providing false subscriber data , but not before it used some of that data to further its own claims — and it had plenty of warning , too .
Ars Technica reports that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used BarrierFree ’ s data in February 2019 to tout improved rural broadband access , even though his agency had warned of inaccurate data for years .
The FCC repeatedly warned BarrierFree about missing data starting in 2015 , and raised concerns about data ( which later proved to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data in March 2018 .
BarrierFree also missed a September filing , and Pai was touting the incorrect numbers the same day the FCC was warning the provider about another deadline .
Pai went on to correct the data in May 2019 , but maintained that broadband was reaching Americans in a “ reasonable and timely fashion.
” The gap was considerably larger than he claimed , though .
Where the Chairman initially claimed that people without access dropped from 26.1 million in late 2016 to 19.4 million a year later , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet service .
That also doesn ’ t factor in concerns about inaccurate data gathering methods .
These findings don ’ t necessarily show the FCC was knowingly using false info .
However , they at least indicates the regulator wasn ’ t heeding numerous red flags .
The Pai-era FCC has made rural broadband one of its top priorities , committing billions to the cause , but reports like this cast doubt on its progress claims .
There ’ s NO doubt it ’ s very important that Americans have access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be provided WITHOUT 5G .
In addition to federal agencies issuing opposition and warnings , congressional members have also formally addressed the FCC with their 5G safety concerns .
In addition to municipalities filing lawsuits against the agency , they have passed resolutions to ban 5G until studies prove it ’ s safe ( see 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 .
6 ) and ordinances to limit and/or control installation .
State representatives in Hawaii and Illinois have introduced bills to ban it until studies show that it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have also issued formal statements against deployment .
5G has become so controversial it ’ s been covered in Dilbert comic strips AND Trump recently withdrew his re-nomination of a veteran FCC commissioner because of it .
Of course , we can ’ t blame continued forced deployment solely on the FCC – Trump recently re-introduced his proposal for a nationalized 5G plan .
Become an Activist Post Patron for $ 1 per month at Patreon .
In 2019 telecom executives gave U.S. congressional testimony that they had NO scientific evidence that 5G @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worldwide oppose deployment until studies show that it ’ s safe .
Cities worldwide AND entire countries have taken action to ban , delay , halt , and limit installation AS WELL AS issue moratoriums ( see 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ) .
Since 2018 people and animals have been getting sick where 5G has been turned on ( see 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ) .
Of course , other sources of wireless can cause illness too .
That ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FCC refuses to update its radiation exposure guidelines .
Out of sight – out of mind… Activist Post reports regularly about the FCC and unsafe technology .
For more information visit our archives and the following websites .
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Get a free @ @ @ @ @ @

By B.N. Frank
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to protect Americans by regulating the telecom industry. Their history of catering to the industry at the expense of the public pre-dates the Trump administration. Current chairman, Ajit Pai, refers to their approach as being “not heavy handed” and the agency has, unfortunately, become more despicable (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
Despite research proving harm, they refuse to update 24-year old federal RF radiation exposure guidelines. Lawsuits have been filed against them for NOT protecting Americans from unsafe levels of radiation as well as 5G deployment on land (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and in space. Federal agencies and other experts have also warned that 5G can threaten national security, public safety, and weather forecasting accuracy (see 1, 2, 3). The FCC has dismissed all of this.
Now Pai is being called out AGAIN for misleading Americans at the expense of Americans.
From Engadget:
FCC chairman cited false broadband data in spite of warnings Officials had worried about the data for years. The FCC has proposed fining internet provider BarrierFree for providing false subscriber data, but not before it used some of that data to further its own claims — and it had plenty of warning, too. Ars Technica reports that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used BarrierFree’s data in February 2019 to tout improved rural broadband access, even though his agency had warned of inaccurate data for years. The FCC repeatedly warned BarrierFree about missing data starting in 2015, and raised concerns about data (which later proved to be false) when it finally sent data in March 2018. BarrierFree also missed a September filing, and Pai was touting the incorrect numbers the same day the FCC was warning the provider about another deadline. Pai went on to correct the data in May 2019, but maintained that broadband was reaching Americans in a “reasonable and timely fashion.” The gap was considerably larger than he claimed, though. Where the Chairman initially claimed that people without access dropped from 26.1 million in late 2016 to 19.4 million a year later, there were actually 21.3 million people without fast internet service. That also doesn’t factor in concerns about inaccurate data gathering methods. These findings don’t necessarily show the FCC was knowingly using false info. However, they at least indicates the regulator wasn’t heeding numerous red flags. The Pai-era FCC has made rural broadband one of its top priorities, committing billions to the cause, but reports like this cast doubt on its progress claims.
There’s NO doubt it’s very important that Americans have access to high-speed internet. However, it can be provided WITHOUT 5G. In addition to federal agencies issuing opposition and warnings, congressional members have also formally addressed the FCC with their 5G safety concerns. In addition to municipalities filing lawsuits against the agency, they have passed resolutions to ban 5G until studies prove it’s safe (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 6) and ordinances to limit and/or control installation. State representatives in Hawaii and Illinois have introduced bills to ban it until studies show that it’s safe. Illinois legislators and candidates have also issued formal statements against deployment.
5G has become so controversial it’s been covered in Dilbert comic strips AND Trump recently withdrew his re-nomination of a veteran FCC commissioner because of it. Of course, we can’t blame continued forced deployment solely on the FCC – Trump recently re-introduced his proposal for a nationalized 5G plan.
Become an Activist Post Patron for $1 per month at Patreon.
In 2019 telecom executives gave U.S. congressional testimony that they had NO scientific evidence that 5G is safe. The majority of scientists worldwide oppose deployment until studies show that it’s safe. Cities worldwide AND entire countries have taken action to ban, delay, halt, and limit installation AS WELL AS issue moratoriums (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
Since 2018 people and animals have been getting sick where 5G has been turned on (see 1, 2, 3, 4). Of course, other sources of wireless can cause illness too. That’s why it’s convenient that the FCC refuses to update its radiation exposure guidelines.
Out of sight – out of mind…
Activist Post reports regularly about the FCC and unsafe technology. For more information visit our archives and the following websites.
Image: Pixabay
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activistpost--2020-09-08--China Unloads Dollars as Gold Tests Support

Since posting new record highs in early August , the gold market has consolidated above $ 1,900/oz support .
A close below the $ 1,900 level would carry bearish implications for the near term .
Alternatively , a move back above $ 2,000/oz would likely be followed through to the upside with a rally to fresh highs .
Silver , in turn , could be expected to run to new multi-year highs above $ 30/oz .
These breakouts will happen eventually .
The relentless mega trend of dollar depreciation ( i.e.
, inflation ) ensures hard money will gain value @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question is whether a deeper correction occurs first… or the major trend accelerates .
Inflation rates may be set to accelerate as the Fed aims for an “ average ” of 2 % .
According to central banker logic , this requires pushing inflation above 2 % for an unspecified period .
Holders of low-yielding U.S. dollar-denominated debt instruments should be quite concerned about the prospect of losing purchasing power .
The Chinese government apparently is .
The second-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries , worth over $ 1 trillion , is now gradually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced last week that the country would aim to hold $ 800 billion in U.S. debt “ under normal circumstances.
” But , he added , “ China might sell all of its U.S. bonds in an extreme case , like a military conflict.
” If major world powers dumped their Treasury holdings and stopped accepting U.S. currency in international trade , the U.S. dollar ’ s privileged status and value would collapse .
For now , the decline of the dollar appears likely to proceed at a more gradual pace .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way .
Given the spate of bearish developments to hit the U.S. dollar over the past few weeks , it ’ s possible currency traders have grown too negative toward the buck in the very near term .
A counter-trend USD bounce would likely put downward pressure on precious metals prices .
Of course , gold and silver stand to gain against all fiat currencies that trade against the U.S. dollar .
So regardless of whether the dollar rises versus the euro or the yen or the yuan over any given period @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a currency – and will certainly not diminish the long-term case for owning physical precious metals .
Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange , a precious metals dealer recently named “ Best in the USA ” by an independent global ratings group .
A graduate of the University of Florida , Gleason is a seasoned business leader , investor , political strategist , and grassroots activist .
Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN , FoxNews , and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Seeking Alpha .
Subscribe to Activist Post for truth , peace , and freedom news .
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By Stefan Gleason
Since posting new record highs in early August, the gold market has consolidated above $1,900/oz support.
A close below the $1,900 level would carry bearish implications for the near term.
Alternatively, a move back above $2,000/oz would likely be followed through to the upside with a rally to fresh highs. Silver, in turn, could be expected to run to new multi-year highs above $30/oz.
These breakouts will happen eventually. The relentless mega trend of dollar depreciation (i.e., inflation) ensures hard money will gain value versus fiat Federal Reserve notes.
The question is whether a deeper correction occurs first… or the major trend accelerates.
Inflation rates may be set to accelerate as the Fed aims for an “average” of 2%. According to central banker logic, this requires pushing inflation above 2% for an unspecified period.
Holders of low-yielding U.S. dollar-denominated debt instruments should be quite concerned about the prospect of losing purchasing power.
The Chinese government apparently is. The second-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, worth over $1 trillion, is now gradually selling them.
Chinese economist Xi Junyang announced last week that the country would aim to hold $800 billion in U.S. debt “under normal circumstances.” But, he added, “China might sell all of its U.S. bonds in an extreme case, like a military conflict.”
If major world powers dumped their Treasury holdings and stopped accepting U.S. currency in international trade, the U.S. dollar’s privileged status and value would collapse.
For now, the decline of the dollar appears likely to proceed at a more gradual pace. There will likely even be mini rallies along the way.
Given the spate of bearish developments to hit the U.S. dollar over the past few weeks, it’s possible currency traders have grown too negative toward the buck in the very near term. A counter-trend USD bounce would likely put downward pressure on precious metals prices.
Of course, gold and silver stand to gain against all fiat currencies that trade against the U.S. dollar.
So regardless of whether the dollar rises versus the euro or the yen or the yuan over any given period, it will not become any sounder of a currency – and will certainly not diminish the long-term case for owning physical precious metals.
Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, a precious metals dealer recently named “Best in the USA” by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC and in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, The Street, and Seeking Alpha.
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Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Send resources to the front lines of peace and freedom HERE! Follow us on SoMee, HIVE, Parler, Flote, Minds, and Twitter.
Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.


activistpost--2020-09-08--Spain Uses Helicopter To Crackdown On Beachgoers

New footage , published on social media , shows Spain ’ s Civil Guard flying a helicopter over popular Spanish beaches , ordering locals and tourists , over a loudspeaker , to exit the area amid new restrictions as coronavirus cases surge .
The helicopter , spotted over the coastline on Palma Beach and Calvia Beach on Majorca , one of Spain ’ s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean , on Saturday , could be heard instructing beachgoers to leave the area .
Social media users described the video as “ creepy , ” others said : “ We are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ realizing it .
Monitoring the population with helicopters instead of monitoring the drain of our borders or the real criminals .
We are left with a precious dictatorship.
” Another user said , “ Hitler would be proud .
Total state control .
Extreme authoritarian govt machine turned against the people who it extracts resources from to fund the heli covid nazi regime.
” The government of the Balearic Islands recently enforced new coronavirus restrictions as the contagion reemerged in Spain .
Beaches have banned people from 9 pm and 7 am ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , bars , shops , and night clubs , with many forced to close and or limit capacity and hours .
Local officials have also placed rules on social gatherings and suspended sporting and cultural activities .
Curfews , in some areas , could be seen if surging cases across the Balearic Islands gets out of hand .
In response to the use of helicopters , the Civil Guard spokesman said : “ The diffusion of messages using megaphones from vehicles and helicopters at beaches and parks is being carried out daily.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the epicenter of new coronavirus cases in Europe .
RT News contributor Neil Clark said Spain ’ s control is “ even more authoritarian than it was under Francisco Franco , ” who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator .
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By Tyler Durden
New footage, published on social media, shows Spain’s Civil Guard flying a helicopter over popular Spanish beaches, ordering locals and tourists, over a loudspeaker, to exit the area amid new restrictions as coronavirus cases surge.
The helicopter, spotted over the coastline on Palma Beach and Calvia Beach on Majorca, one of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, on Saturday, could be heard instructing beachgoers to leave the area.
🚁 Sinceramente me parece espeluznante .. Mallorca. España 🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/2DAVGRNrLw — Noelia de Trastámara (@N_Trastamara) September 5, 2020
Social media users described the video as “creepy,” others said: “We are in the police and oppressive state without realizing it. Monitoring the population with helicopters instead of monitoring the drain of our borders or the real criminals. We are left with a precious dictatorship.”
Another user said, “Hitler would be proud. Total state control. Extreme authoritarian govt machine turned against the people who it extracts resources from to fund the heli covid nazi regime.”
The government of the Balearic Islands recently enforced new coronavirus restrictions as the contagion reemerged in Spain. Beaches have banned people from 9 pm and 7 am; stricter public health orders have hit restaurants, bars, shops, and night clubs, with many forced to close and or limit capacity and hours.
Local officials have also placed rules on social gatherings and suspended sporting and cultural activities. Curfews, in some areas, could be seen if surging cases across the Balearic Islands gets out of hand.
In response to the use of helicopters, the Civil Guard spokesman said: “The diffusion of messages using megaphones from vehicles and helicopters at beaches and parks is being carried out daily.”
“This is happening to make sure the new rules established by the Balearic Islands regional government regarding the new timetables, are adhered to,” the spokesman said.
As of Sept., Spain is becoming the epicenter of new coronavirus cases in Europe.
RT News contributor Neil Clark said Spain’s control is “even more authoritarian than it was under Francisco Franco,” who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator.
Source: Zerohedge
Image: Solarpix
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activistpost--2020-09-08--MKULTRA And The CIA’s War On The Human Mind

Review of Stephen Kinzer , Poisoner in Chief : Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control ( New York : Henry Holt and Company , 2019 ) The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) has a fearsome reputation .
The author and executor of countless coups and political assassinations , the CIA is notorious for waterboarding , “ extraordinary rendition , ” regime change , kidnapping , narcotics smuggling , financing of guerrilla wars , and many other unsavory activities around the world , including against Americans , even inside the United States .
But “ fearsome ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ CIA has failed at least as often as it has succeeded , and sometimes the failures are so flagrant—such as sending thousands of anticommunist guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines in Korea , Eastern Europe , China , and Southeast Asia during the Cold War , where nearly all of them died—that CIA insiders wryly refer to their organization as “ Clowns In Action.
” Which is it ?
Is the CIA a dastardly menace or a hotbed of horrible mistakes ?
If Stephen Kinzer ’ s new book , Poisoner in Chief , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both .
A veteran reporter on foreign conflicts such as those in Rwanda , Guatemala , Nicaragua , and Iran , Kinzer is a former New York Times correspondent and , most famously , the author of the 2006 bestseller Overthrow : America ’ s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq .
In his latest effort he brings his analytical skills to bear on perhaps the most disturbing CIA project of them all : MKULTRA , the top-secret , long-running effort to find a method for controlling the human mind .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for techniques of mind control , ” Kinzer writes , was a by-product of World War II .
At the end of 1942 , a University of Wisconsin bacteriologist named Ira Baldwin— “ America ’ s first bio-warrior ” and a part-time Quaker preacher—was loaned to Washington ( with the blessing of the University of Wisconsin president ) in order to set up and run a bioweapons program for the United States military ( p. 16 ) .
Based out of Camp Detrick in Maryland , the Baldwin lab cranked out bioweapons for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of Baldwin ’ s bigger projects , shipment of tons of anthrax spores , ordered by Winston Churchill for potential use against the Nazis , was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and almost ready for delivery when the Germans surrendered on May 7 , 1945 ( p. 19 ) .
For many , even for Quaker preachers , World War II cleared away the last of the psychological hurdles against unleashing bioweapons against an enemy .
Kinzer ’ s book tells the tale of how the targeting of unsuspecting populations was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Cold War , which followed the demise of the Third Reich .
The ruined Third Reich provided much of the original brainpower for MKULTRA .
Immediately after World War II , the CIA—formed out of the Office of War Information in 1945—was faced with a choice .
The Germans and the Japanese had been conducting advanced experiments on germ warfare and other forms of biological weaponry .
Should the Allies prosecute as war criminals the scientists involved with such projects , or hire them as expert advisors ?
With the Cold War @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unpredictable enemy , the CIA , with the tacit approval of the few members of the United States Congress who were allowed to know even the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency , decided to make use of the bioweapon expertise of erstwhile foes in order to counter the new adversary in Moscow .
For example , Kurt Blome , the Nazis ’ director of biowarfare research and development whose work had been championed by Heinrich Himmler , was acquitted , by American political fiat , at the Doctors ’ Trial in Nuremberg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Operation Paperclip designed mainly to bring German rocket scientists to the US—at Camp Detrick ( pp .
20–24 ) .
It was at Camp Detrick that Blome encountered a rising star in the CIA , Sidney Gottlieb .
Gottlieb , a bacteriological specialist who had been a star student of Ira Baldwin ’ s at Wisconsin , is the main figure in Kinzer ’ s book .
His career is virtually synonymous with MKULTRA .
Under the direction of Gottlieb , the CIA ’ s laboratories at Camp Detrick transitioned from R @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subjects , such as in 1950 when a US Navy minesweeper “ specially equipped with large aerosol hoses ” spent six days spraying the Serratia marcescens bacterium into the San Francisco fog , infecting some eight hundred thousand people ( pp .
37–38 ) —to drugs which could be used for mind control .
( MKNAOMI , MKULTRA ’ s sister CIA project , was also tasked with finding poisons and biotoxins which the CIA and the US government could use in various operations . )
Gottlieb provided the big ideas into which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of mass murder by bacillus .
Gottlieb became , virtually overnight and with the help of former Nazi doctors , America ’ s “ poisoner in chief.
” The CIA ’ s mind control program , which was assuming a bigger and bigger importance as fears of Soviet brainwashing grew in the US , was originally called Operation Bluebird and was personally overseen by CIA higher-up Allen Dulles .
( 47 ) At first , the Bluebird team experimented with “ hypnosis , electroshock , and sensory deprivation , ” along with drugs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in “ secret prisons in Germany and Japan , ” looking for a way to extract information out of POWs and captured spies ( pp .
44 , 48–49 ) .
But Dulles was unsatisfied with the results and decided to give the young CIA recruit Sidney Gottlieb control of Bluebird ’ s updated iteration : Operation Artichoke ( pp .
51–52 ) .
The goal of Artichoke was to do whatever it took to get prisoners to divulge military and state secrets to the CIA .
The Cold War would brook nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind .
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Dulles became deputy director of central intelligence three days after launching Artichoke in 1951 , and Gottlieb , invisible to the outside world , was given virtually unlimited rein to carry out any experiments thought necessary to achieve mind control ( p. 51 ) .
This drive to achieve total operational control over the human psyche eclipsed all reality and tactical limitation .
If the US didn ’ t win the race to the mind control method , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire American population lay vulnerable to mental enslavement by the Soviets .
Dulles , Kinzer writes , despite a disastrously unsuccessful three-year “ Artichoke ” attack on a Bulgarian political prisoner named Dmitri Dimitrov , “ had convinced himself not only that mind control techniques exist but that Communists had discovered them , and that this posed a mortal threat to the rest of the world ” ( pp .
52–53 ) .
Mind control was the pressing need , but nothing brought it within reach .
Technique after technique , drug after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but to no avail .
In frustration , Artichoke agents under Gottlieb upped the ante , turning to marijuana , cocaine , and then heroin as possible catalysts of CIA-directed , anti-Soviet brainwashing .
As part of Artichoke , a University of Rochester psychology professor was given a grant by the US Navy to test heroin on his students .
The control of the mind remained as elusive as ever , despite the massive dosing of the Rochester student population with opiates .
Nothing seemed to have the potential to crack open the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
Someone in Artichoke suggested using mescaline after the other narcotics failed , and this gave Sidney Gottlieb an idea .
He remembered hearing about a drug called LSD which Dr. Albert Hofmann had discovered during an experiment at Sandoz laboratories in Basel , Switzerland , in 1943 .
Lysergic acid diethylamide ( LSD ) , an ergot enzyme , produced extraordinary and disturbing psychological effects , Dr. Hofmann found when he ingested some and recorded the drug ’ s effects .
Washington learned of Hofmann ’ s discovery in 1949 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US military complex told Gottlieb of the new substance ( pp .
34–35 ) In 1951 , Gottlieb asked Harold Abramson , who had been a physician in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War II , to administer LSD to him .
Gottlieb experienced the same psychedelic state as Dr. Hofmann had described .
Other subjects were tested , as well , not all of them wittingly , and all seemed to exhibit similar reactions .
LSD most definitely altered the mind ( pp .
60–61 ) .
Gottlieb was convinced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which would allow the CIA to control the psyche , and therefore to beat the Soviets at ( what Allen Dulles , Gottlieb , and many others at CIA thought , at least , was ) the Soviets ’ own game .
The experiments on human subjects followed rapidly after Gottlieb ’ s conversion to belief in the powers of LSD .
These experiments often ended in death , often by murder .
One study quoted by Kinzer reports that The CIA carried out similar experimentation and executions in Korea and Germany ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personally involved .
Throughout the 1950s the experimentation continued .
An American artist named Stanley Glickman was lured to a bar near his studio in Paris by CIA agents in 1951 and a chemical was slipped into his drink .
Glickman began to hallucinate wildly .
He fled in a state of panic and remained in his Paris apartment for the next ten months in paranoid hiding until his family came to take him home , and then he spent the rest of his life as a near invalid .
The chemical which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s drink was almost certainly LSD , and Glickman , Kinzer suggests , had been chosen by the CIA because he had just recovered from hepatitis and the Artichoke team was conducting an experiment on the effects of hepatic infection on the efficacy of LSD ( pp .
66–67 ) Things got worse from there .
In 1952 , the CIA commissioned underworld denizen and former vice cop George Hunter White to run a human-subjects experiment site at 81 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village , New York ( pp .
74–75 ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the CIA ’ s apartment “ expendables ” on whom Gottlieb and his team could test LSD .
White “ knew the whores , the pimps , the people who brought in the drugs , ” as one of Gottlieb ’ s MKULTRA colleagues later explained , and this made him invaluable for procuring the “ drug users , petty criminals , and others who could be relied upon not to complain about what had happened to them ” when the CIA ’ s experiments were finished ( pp .
76–77 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffered nervous breakdowns , and some died .
In order to keep the supply of LSD flowing , CIA agents went to Basel , where LSD had been discovered , and tried to buy all the LSD in stock .
Allen Dulles authorized a $ 240,000 outlay to pay for it ( p. 86 ) .
Sandoz held the patent for Hofmann ’ s 1943 discovery , but Sandoz wanted nothing to do with the troublesome substance and so Gottlieb , freed of any need to scruple over IP infringement , tasked US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the States ( pp .
85–86 ) With their mind control serum in production , MKULTRA agents could focus on how to dose experimental subjects .
The CIA even hired a professional magician , John Mulholland , to teach Gottlieb and his agents how to deliver LSD into unsuspecting subjects ’ drinks and food without being detected ( pp .
89–94 ) Gottlieb recruited a Kentucky addiction specialist , Dr. Harry Isbell , to test LSD and new mind-altering drugs on prisoners and patients .
More lives were destroyed ( pp .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ another of Gottlieb ’ s agent-doctors was none other than James “ Whitey ” Bulger , the mafioso who , along with “ nineteen other inmates ” at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary , beginning in 1957 “ was given LSD nearly every day for fifteen months , without being told what it was ” ( pp .
98–99 ) .
Bulger was plagued for the rest of his life with nightmares , suicidal thoughts , and “ deep depression ” ( p. 98 ) .
Bulger , who had been told that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find a cure for schizophrenia , did not learn the truth about what had happened until 1979 ( pp .
263–64 ) .
The human toll of Gottlieb ’ s MKULTRA experiments continued to mount .
One of Gottlieb ’ s closest associates in the project , Frank Olson—a bacteriologist trained at the University of Wisconsin who had also been recruited for the CIA by Gottlieb ’ s mentor Ira Baldwin—began to express doubts about what the MKULTRA team was doing .
He told his wife that he had made a “ terrible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 114 ) .
He shared his misgivings with his CIA colleagues as well .
Olson ’ s conscience appeared to be getting the better of him , and he became a liability to the team .
In late 1953 , Gottlieb surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD at a backwoods MKULTRA gathering , “ Deep Creek Rendezvous , ” outside Camp Detrick ( p. 113 ) .
Olson spiraled into a frightening disorientation , and early in the morning on November 28 , 1953—a few days after Thanksgiving—Olson “ fell or jumped ” from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manhattan , dying few moments after hitting the concrete below .
Another MKULTRA agent , Gottlieb ’ s lieutenant Robert Lashbrook , was the only other person in the room when Olson “ fell or jumped ” ( pp .
120–21 ) .
Lashbrook told the New York City police that Olson had jumped out of the window and Olson ’ s death was originally designated a suicide , but the Olson family eventually grew suspicious and an investigation was carried out , including a new autopsy on Olson ’ s body .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s examination of the corpse , declared : “ I think Frank Olson was intentionally , deliberately , with malice aforethought , thrown out of that window ” ( p. 250 ) .
Wounds on Olson ’ s body were consistent with methods taught in CIA manuals for incapacitating people and then killing them in order to make their deaths look self-inflicted .
Gottlieb and MKULTRA were shaken by Olson ’ s demise , but they carried on with their work .
They spent the next few years looking for magic mushrooms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suicide capsules for American agents , including U-2 pilot Gary Powers ( who chose not to use his when he was shot down over the Soviet Union ) ( pp .
172–75 ) ; attempting , at the order of then attorney general Robert Kennedy , to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro ( after exploding cigars and exploding conch shells were ruled out , Gottlieb tried with a wetsuit laced with fungi and bacteria ) ( p. 184 ) ; and hooking Allen Ginsberg and other radicals on LSD ( pp .
188–90 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American embassy in Leopoldville in the Congo poisons that Gottlieb had developed to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba , but the Belgians and the Africans beat the CIA to it ( pp .
176–80 ) .
Gottlieb ’ s career brought ruin and suffering to untold numbers of people , many of them innocent .
He retired from the CIA in 1973 after receiving the Distinguished Intelligence Medal ( p. 211 ) .
Lifelong devotees of folk dance , Gottlieb and his wife , Margaret , moved to the countryside in rural Virginia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small community there , volunteering , dancing , and experimenting with radical ecology .
However , “ investigative reporter Seymour Hersh , who had won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam , ” learned of the MH-CHAOS program targeting Americans , and the Congress was forced to act .
Gottlieb ’ s career , long a well-kept secret , was being brought into the open , and his retirement would therefore be far from peaceful .
But there were still many who tried to cover up what Gottlieb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 1975 , after the outcry caused by the Hersh reporting , President Gerald Ford deputized Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to chair a commission on the CIA .
The new CIA director , William Colby , was remarkably frank .
Colby informed the Rockefeller Commission that “ the CIA had conducted LSD experiments that resulted in deaths .
Later he referred to assassination plots ” ( p. 216 ) .
Nelson Rockefeller , attempting to prevent the CIA director from revealing too much , buttonholed Colby later : “ Bill , do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ material to us ?
” ( p. 216 ) .
In 1977 , in the wake of the Church Report on further American intelligence excesses , Senator Edward Kennedy , Robert ’ s brother , spurred on by some documents which had been discovered as the result of a FOIA request ( Gottlieb had ordered all MKULTRA files burned , but some undetected copies remained ) , called Admiral Stansfield Turner to testify before Congress on MKULTRA .
The walls were closing in .
Gottlieb himself was eventually forced to testify—albeit in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gottlieb essentially pleaded amnesia ( nearly all of his answers to questions about MKULTRA were some version of “ I do not recall ” ) and the matter seemed to end there .
Still , the skeletons in Gottlieb ’ s closet would not go away .
In 1984 Gottlieb agreed to meet with the family of Frank Olson , the former MKULTRA colleague who had “ fallen or jumped ” from his Manhattan hotel room in 1953 .
Eric Olson , Frank Olson ’ s son , was unconvinced by Gottlieb ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and , after Frank Olson ’ s widow and Eric ’ s mother passed away , ordered Frank ’ s body exhumed in 1994 .
As information about MKULTRA built in the public ’ s awareness , other cases were reopened , including that of Stanley Glickman .
( 257 ) The courts were now involved and Gottlieb could not count on the CIA to get him out of his legal trouble .
Gottlieb pushed back the trial for Glickman ’ s murder as long as he could , and then , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gottlieb died .
Like Frank Olson , it was not officially revealed whether or not the death had been a suicide ( p. 259 ) .
Stephen Kinzer ’ s Poisoner in Chief is a highly readable , thoroughly researched introduction to the life and work of one of America ’ s most unknown , and yet infamous , government agents .
Kinzer is to be thanked for his plainspoken , courageous book .
Even those who have studied the CIA and the various schemes and crimes which “ the Agency ” has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be surprised by some of the information Kinzer relates .
To see in one volume a rendering of just some of the lives ruined by just one CIA program , MKULTRA , is a sobering revelation .
Sidney Gottlieb , the person directly responsible for much , if not most , of the MKULTRA devastation over more than twenty years , remains as mysterious at the end of Kinzer ’ s volume as at the beginning , however .
By all accounts Gottlieb was a good student from a stable family .
Kinzer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been rejected for military service in World War II—Gottlieb stuttered and had a clubfoot—left him unsatisfied and impatient to prove his patriotism , an urgent task for the son of immigrant Jews ( p. 50 ) .
Gottlieb was heavily involved in New Age mysticism and meditation and appears to have expended considerable energy psychologically compartmentalizing his “ work , ” so there are indications that he was aware that the experiments he and his MKULTRA team were carrying out were , at best , unethical , and objectively speaking often outright crimes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his endeavors , and the explanation that Gottlieb , Allen Dulles , and many others in the CIA gave—to themselves and to each other , and to the world around when pressed—makes the most sense .
They had a country to defend , they faced an enemy of unprecedented cruelty in the Soviet Union , and they were willing to do whatever it took , even sacrificing innocent people , to keep Americans as a whole from falling under the spell of communist mind control .
Jason Morgan is associate professor at Reitaku @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a 2016 Mises Institute Fellow .
For a list of his books and publications , see his personal site .
Subscribe to Activist Post for truth , peace , and freedom news .
Send resources to the front lines of peace and freedom HERE !
Follow us on SoMee , HIVE , Parler , Flote , Minds , and Twitter .
Provide , Protect and Profit from what ’ s coming !
Get a free issue of Counter Markets today .

By Jason Morgan
Review of Stephen Kinzer, Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019)
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a fearsome reputation. The author and executor of countless coups and political assassinations, the CIA is notorious for waterboarding, “extraordinary rendition,” regime change, kidnapping, narcotics smuggling, financing of guerrilla wars, and many other unsavory activities around the world, including against Americans, even inside the United States.
But “fearsome” does not mean “flawless.” The CIA has failed at least as often as it has succeeded, and sometimes the failures are so flagrant—such as sending thousands of anticommunist guerrilla fighters behind enemy lines in Korea, Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia during the Cold War, where nearly all of them died—that CIA insiders wryly refer to their organization as “Clowns In Action.”
Which is it? Is the CIA a dastardly menace or a hotbed of horrible mistakes? If Stephen Kinzer’s new book, Poisoner in Chief, is any indication, the answer is both.
A veteran reporter on foreign conflicts such as those in Rwanda, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Iran, Kinzer is a former New York Times correspondent and, most famously, the author of the 2006 bestseller Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. In his latest effort he brings his analytical skills to bear on perhaps the most disturbing CIA project of them all: MKULTRA, the top-secret, long-running effort to find a method for controlling the human mind.
“History’s most systematic search for techniques of mind control,” Kinzer writes, was a by-product of World War II. At the end of 1942, a University of Wisconsin bacteriologist named Ira Baldwin—“America’s first bio-warrior” and a part-time Quaker preacher—was loaned to Washington (with the blessing of the University of Wisconsin president) in order to set up and run a bioweapons program for the United States military (p. 16). Based out of Camp Detrick in Maryland, the Baldwin lab cranked out bioweapons for possible use against Allied enemies. In one of Baldwin’s bigger projects, shipment of tons of anthrax spores, ordered by Winston Churchill for potential use against the Nazis, was approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and almost ready for delivery when the Germans surrendered on May 7, 1945 (p. 19).
For many, even for Quaker preachers, World War II cleared away the last of the psychological hurdles against unleashing bioweapons against an enemy. Kinzer’s book tells the tale of how the targeting of unsuspecting populations was later justified by the bigger war, the Cold War, which followed the demise of the Third Reich.
The ruined Third Reich provided much of the original brainpower for MKULTRA. Immediately after World War II, the CIA—formed out of the Office of War Information in 1945—was faced with a choice. The Germans and the Japanese had been conducting advanced experiments on germ warfare and other forms of biological weaponry. Should the Allies prosecute as war criminals the scientists involved with such projects, or hire them as expert advisors? With the Cold War starting and the Soviets looming as an unpredictable enemy, the CIA, with the tacit approval of the few members of the United States Congress who were allowed to know even the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency, decided to make use of the bioweapon expertise of erstwhile foes in order to counter the new adversary in Moscow.
For example, Kurt Blome, the Nazis’ director of biowarfare research and development whose work had been championed by Heinrich Himmler, was acquitted, by American political fiat, at the Doctors’ Trial in Nuremberg in 1947 and sent to work—as part of Operation Paperclip designed mainly to bring German rocket scientists to the US—at Camp Detrick (pp. 20–24).
It was at Camp Detrick that Blome encountered a rising star in the CIA, Sidney Gottlieb. Gottlieb, a bacteriological specialist who had been a star student of Ira Baldwin’s at Wisconsin, is the main figure in Kinzer’s book. His career is virtually synonymous with MKULTRA. Under the direction of Gottlieb, the CIA’s laboratories at Camp Detrick transitioned from R&D on bioweapons—often using unwitting American subjects, such as in 1950 when a US Navy minesweeper “specially equipped with large aerosol hoses” spent six days spraying the Serratia marcescens bacterium into the San Francisco fog, infecting some eight hundred thousand people (pp. 37–38)—to drugs which could be used for mind control. (MKNAOMI, MKULTRA’s sister CIA project, was also tasked with finding poisons and biotoxins which the CIA and the US government could use in various operations.) Gottlieb provided the big ideas into which to fit Blome’s nefarious knowledge of mass murder by bacillus. Gottlieb became, virtually overnight and with the help of former Nazi doctors, America’s “poisoner in chief.”
The CIA’s mind control program, which was assuming a bigger and bigger importance as fears of Soviet brainwashing grew in the US, was originally called Operation Bluebird and was personally overseen by CIA higher-up Allen Dulles. (47) At first, the Bluebird team experimented with “hypnosis, electroshock, and sensory deprivation,” along with drugs like sodium amytal, at CIA sites in “secret prisons in Germany and Japan,” looking for a way to extract information out of POWs and captured spies (pp. 44, 48–49). But Dulles was unsatisfied with the results and decided to give the young CIA recruit Sidney Gottlieb control of Bluebird’s updated iteration: Operation Artichoke (pp. 51–52). The goal of Artichoke was to do whatever it took to get prisoners to divulge military and state secrets to the CIA. The Cold War would brook nothing short of full-scale war against the human mind.
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Dulles became deputy director of central intelligence three days after launching Artichoke in 1951, and Gottlieb, invisible to the outside world, was given virtually unlimited rein to carry out any experiments thought necessary to achieve mind control (p. 51). This drive to achieve total operational control over the human psyche eclipsed all reality and tactical limitation. If the US didn’t win the race to the mind control method, many in the CIA thought, the entire American population lay vulnerable to mental enslavement by the Soviets. Dulles, Kinzer writes, despite a disastrously unsuccessful three-year “Artichoke” attack on a Bulgarian political prisoner named Dmitri Dimitrov, “had convinced himself not only that mind control techniques exist but that Communists had discovered them, and that this posed a mortal threat to the rest of the world” (pp. 52–53).
Mind control was the pressing need, but nothing brought it within reach. Technique after technique, drug after drug, was tried on prisoners, but to no avail. In frustration, Artichoke agents under Gottlieb upped the ante, turning to marijuana, cocaine, and then heroin as possible catalysts of CIA-directed, anti-Soviet brainwashing. As part of Artichoke, a University of Rochester psychology professor was given a grant by the US Navy to test heroin on his students. The control of the mind remained as elusive as ever, despite the massive dosing of the Rochester student population with opiates. Nothing seemed to have the potential to crack open the mind for the CIA (p. 59).
Someone in Artichoke suggested using mescaline after the other narcotics failed, and this gave Sidney Gottlieb an idea. He remembered hearing about a drug called LSD which Dr. Albert Hofmann had discovered during an experiment at Sandoz laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, in 1943. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), an ergot enzyme, produced extraordinary and disturbing psychological effects, Dr. Hofmann found when he ingested some and recorded the drug’s effects. Washington learned of Hofmann’s discovery in 1949, and one of the chemical specialists in the US military complex told Gottlieb of the new substance (pp. 34–35) In 1951, Gottlieb asked Harold Abramson, who had been a physician in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War II, to administer LSD to him. Gottlieb experienced the same psychedelic state as Dr. Hofmann had described. Other subjects were tested, as well, not all of them wittingly, and all seemed to exhibit similar reactions. LSD most definitely altered the mind (pp. 60–61). Gottlieb was convinced that he had found the magical drug which would allow the CIA to control the psyche, and therefore to beat the Soviets at (what Allen Dulles, Gottlieb, and many others at CIA thought, at least, was) the Soviets’ own game.
The experiments on human subjects followed rapidly after Gottlieb’s conversion to belief in the powers of LSD. These experiments often ended in death, often by murder. One study quoted by Kinzer reports that
in 1951 a team of CIA scientists led by Dr. Gottlieb flew to Tokyo….Four Japanese suspected of working for the Russians were secretly brought to a location where the CIA doctors injected them with a variety of depressants and stimulants….Under relentless questioning, they confessed to working for the Russians. They were taken out into Tokyo Bay, shot and dumped overboard. (p. 64)
The CIA carried out similar experimentation and executions in Korea and Germany (p. 64). Gottlieb was usually personally involved.
Throughout the 1950s the experimentation continued. An American artist named Stanley Glickman was lured to a bar near his studio in Paris by CIA agents in 1951 and a chemical was slipped into his drink. Glickman began to hallucinate wildly. He fled in a state of panic and remained in his Paris apartment for the next ten months in paranoid hiding until his family came to take him home, and then he spent the rest of his life as a near invalid. The chemical which the CIA had slipped into Glickman’s drink was almost certainly LSD, and Glickman, Kinzer suggests, had been chosen by the CIA because he had just recovered from hepatitis and the Artichoke team was conducting an experiment on the effects of hepatic infection on the efficacy of LSD (pp. 66–67)
Things got worse from there. In 1952, the CIA commissioned underworld denizen and former vice cop George Hunter White to run a human-subjects experiment site at 81 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village, New York (pp. 74–75). White’s job was to bring to the CIA’s apartment “expendables” on whom Gottlieb and his team could test LSD. White “knew the whores, the pimps, the people who brought in the drugs,” as one of Gottlieb’s MKULTRA colleagues later explained, and this made him invaluable for procuring the “drug users, petty criminals, and others who could be relied upon not to complain about what had happened to them” when the CIA’s experiments were finished (pp. 76–77). Many of these “expendables” suffered nervous breakdowns, and some died.
In order to keep the supply of LSD flowing, CIA agents went to Basel, where LSD had been discovered, and tried to buy all the LSD in stock. Allen Dulles authorized a $240,000 outlay to pay for it (p. 86). Sandoz held the patent for Hofmann’s 1943 discovery, but Sandoz wanted nothing to do with the troublesome substance and so Gottlieb, freed of any need to scruple over IP infringement, tasked US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly with making LSD in the States (pp. 85–86) With their mind control serum in production, MKULTRA agents could focus on how to dose experimental subjects. The CIA even hired a professional magician, John Mulholland, to teach Gottlieb and his agents how to deliver LSD into unsuspecting subjects’ drinks and food without being detected (pp. 89–94)
Gottlieb recruited a Kentucky addiction specialist, Dr. Harry Isbell, to test LSD and new mind-altering drugs on prisoners and patients. More lives were destroyed (pp. 94–96). Among the victims of another of Gottlieb’s agent-doctors was none other than James “Whitey” Bulger, the mafioso who, along with “nineteen other inmates” at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, beginning in 1957 “was given LSD nearly every day for fifteen months, without being told what it was” (pp. 98–99). Bulger was plagued for the rest of his life with nightmares, suicidal thoughts, and “deep depression” (p. 98). Bulger, who had been told that he was taking part in experiments designed to find a cure for schizophrenia, did not learn the truth about what had happened until 1979 (pp. 263–64).
The human toll of Gottlieb’s MKULTRA experiments continued to mount. One of Gottlieb’s closest associates in the project, Frank Olson—a bacteriologist trained at the University of Wisconsin who had also been recruited for the CIA by Gottlieb’s mentor Ira Baldwin—began to express doubts about what the MKULTRA team was doing. He told his wife that he had made a “terrible mistake” in his work (p. 114). He shared his misgivings with his CIA colleagues as well. Olson’s conscience appeared to be getting the better of him, and he became a liability to the team.
In late 1953, Gottlieb surreptitiously dosed Olson with LSD at a backwoods MKULTRA gathering, “Deep Creek Rendezvous,” outside Camp Detrick (p. 113). Olson spiraled into a frightening disorientation, and early in the morning on November 28, 1953—a few days after Thanksgiving—Olson “fell or jumped” from a window of the Statler Hotel in Manhattan, dying few moments after hitting the concrete below. Another MKULTRA agent, Gottlieb’s lieutenant Robert Lashbrook, was the only other person in the room when Olson “fell or jumped” (pp. 120–21). Lashbrook told the New York City police that Olson had jumped out of the window and Olson’s death was originally designated a suicide, but the Olson family eventually grew suspicious and an investigation was carried out, including a new autopsy on Olson’s body. The forensic pathologist, after a month’s examination of the corpse, declared: “I think Frank Olson was intentionally, deliberately, with malice aforethought, thrown out of that window” (p. 250). Wounds on Olson’s body were consistent with methods taught in CIA manuals for incapacitating people and then killing them in order to make their deaths look self-inflicted.
Gottlieb and MKULTRA were shaken by Olson’s demise, but they carried on with their work. They spent the next few years looking for magic mushrooms in Mexico (157); arranging suicide capsules for American agents, including U-2 pilot Gary Powers (who chose not to use his when he was shot down over the Soviet Union) (pp. 172–75); attempting, at the order of then attorney general Robert Kennedy, to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (after exploding cigars and exploding conch shells were ruled out, Gottlieb tried with a wetsuit laced with fungi and bacteria) (p. 184); and hooking Allen Ginsberg and other radicals on LSD (pp. 188–90). Gottlieb personally delivered to the American embassy in Leopoldville in the Congo poisons that Gottlieb had developed to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, but the Belgians and the Africans beat the CIA to it (pp. 176–80).
Gottlieb’s career brought ruin and suffering to untold numbers of people, many of them innocent. He retired from the CIA in 1973 after receiving the Distinguished Intelligence Medal (p. 211). Lifelong devotees of folk dance, Gottlieb and his wife, Margaret, moved to the countryside in rural Virginia and attempted to blend in with the small community there, volunteering, dancing, and experimenting with radical ecology. However, “investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam,” learned of the MH-CHAOS program targeting Americans, and the Congress was forced to act. Gottlieb’s career, long a well-kept secret, was being brought into the open, and his retirement would therefore be far from peaceful.
But there were still many who tried to cover up what Gottlieb and the other MKULTRA agents had done. In 1975, after the outcry caused by the Hersh reporting, President Gerald Ford deputized Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to chair a commission on the CIA. The new CIA director, William Colby, was remarkably frank. Colby informed the Rockefeller Commission that “the CIA had conducted LSD experiments that resulted in deaths. Later he referred to assassination plots” (p. 216). Nelson Rockefeller, attempting to prevent the CIA director from revealing too much, buttonholed Colby later: “Bill, do you really have to present all this material to us?” (p. 216).
In 1977, in the wake of the Church Report on further American intelligence excesses, Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert’s brother, spurred on by some documents which had been discovered as the result of a FOIA request (Gottlieb had ordered all MKULTRA files burned, but some undetected copies remained), called Admiral Stansfield Turner to testify before Congress on MKULTRA. The walls were closing in. Gottlieb himself was eventually forced to testify—albeit in a closed-room setting his lawyer had helped arrange—but Gottlieb essentially pleaded amnesia (nearly all of his answers to questions about MKULTRA were some version of “I do not recall”) and the matter seemed to end there.
Still, the skeletons in Gottlieb’s closet would not go away. In 1984 Gottlieb agreed to meet with the family of Frank Olson, the former MKULTRA colleague who had “fallen or jumped” from his Manhattan hotel room in 1953. Eric Olson, Frank Olson’s son, was unconvinced by Gottlieb’s explanation for the “accident,” and, after Frank Olson’s widow and Eric’s mother passed away, ordered Frank’s body exhumed in 1994. As information about MKULTRA built in the public’s awareness, other cases were reopened, including that of Stanley Glickman. (257) The courts were now involved and Gottlieb could not count on the CIA to get him out of his legal trouble. Gottlieb pushed back the trial for Glickman’s murder as long as he could, and then, in early March, 1999, Sidney Gottlieb died.
Like Frank Olson, it was not officially revealed whether or not the death had been a suicide (p. 259).
Stephen Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief is a highly readable, thoroughly researched introduction to the life and work of one of America’s most unknown, and yet infamous, government agents. Kinzer is to be thanked for his plainspoken, courageous book. Even those who have studied the CIA and the various schemes and crimes which “the Agency” has committed over the past seventy-five years will be surprised by some of the information Kinzer relates. To see in one volume a rendering of just some of the lives ruined by just one CIA program, MKULTRA, is a sobering revelation.
Sidney Gottlieb, the person directly responsible for much, if not most, of the MKULTRA devastation over more than twenty years, remains as mysterious at the end of Kinzer’s volume as at the beginning, however. By all accounts Gottlieb was a good student from a stable family. Kinzer speculates that perhaps Gottlieb’s having been rejected for military service in World War II—Gottlieb stuttered and had a clubfoot—left him unsatisfied and impatient to prove his patriotism, an urgent task for the son of immigrant Jews (p. 50). Gottlieb was heavily involved in New Age mysticism and meditation and appears to have expended considerable energy psychologically compartmentalizing his “work,” so there are indications that he was aware that the experiments he and his MKULTRA team were carrying out were, at best, unethical, and objectively speaking often outright crimes.
But Gottlieb was hardly alone in his endeavors, and the explanation that Gottlieb, Allen Dulles, and many others in the CIA gave—to themselves and to each other, and to the world around when pressed—makes the most sense. They had a country to defend, they faced an enemy of unprecedented cruelty in the Soviet Union, and they were willing to do whatever it took, even sacrificing innocent people, to keep Americans as a whole from falling under the spell of communist mind control.
Source: Mises.org
Jason Morgan is associate professor at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan, and was a 2016 Mises Institute Fellow. For a list of his books and publications, see his personal site.
Image: Truthstream Media
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