Radiation veterans still seek justice why?

I respectfully request attention to the following on behalf of a forgotten (on purpose) group of Veterans, known as “Radiated” or “Atomic” Vets (see our web site www.radvets.org).
.
For over 63 years the DOD in collaboration with the VA has willfully and intentionally neglected us.

We are older veterans, and now the few still surviving who took part in the first atomic bomb blasé in New Mexico on July 16, 1945; those of us that were seasoned combat veterans that went in 45 days after the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki; those that took part in the many “test series”; and those charged with handling and securing nuclear material. None were informed of the risks.

The VA, in it's self-proclaimed wisdom, continues to delay justice for our class of Veterans. The VA has been very negligent in acknowledging RADIATION EXPOSURE as causative for many ailments, recognizing only a handful of cancers for purposes of medical treatment and compensation.

For the remainder of chronic illnesses recognized by the medical community as caused by disruption of the body’s immune system, the VA, in conjunction with DOD, uses a convoluted (and declared unscientific) theory called “ DOSE RECONSTRUCTION” to determine, years after the fact, an amount of radiation exposure, and the results.

This has been prejudicial for those exposed to Ionizing Radiation, including their families, as many have deceased due to exposure.

Many of these veterans were sworn to secrecy and too many died not knowing the secrecy ban had been lifted for purposes of seeking medical help. It is very discouraging to find very few Civil Service personnel in the VA do not have the slightest knowledge of Radiation Exposure and its effects.

In addition to the effects of ionizing radiation I highly recommend the VA be officially educated in the exposures of the SHAD & SHAD112 Veterans contaminated with various chemical exposures, again this is the same type of DOD secrecy operation as described above.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT AGENT ORANGE IS ONLY ONE TYPE OF EXPOSURE,THAT HAS HARMED AND CONTINUES TO HARM SURVIVING VETERANS.

Thank You, Charles Clark,
President Radiated Veterans of America
WWII & KOREA VETERAN

Problems with the new DOD website about experiments

HRC

Force Health Protection and Readiness

Department of Defense

ATTN: CB Exposure Manager

5113 Leesburg Pike, Suite 901

Falls Church, VA 22041



September 19, 2008



Dear CB Exposure Manager,



I have gone through your CB Exposures Web Site http://fhp.osd.mil/cbexposures and as a former Edgewood Volunteer I find it troubling and believe the writers were uninformed or deliberately printed misinformation and revisionist fabrications.

In the recent past I sent documents to the DOD proving what I am about to address and I can supply them again if need be. Army “core values” dictate corrections, lest a stain be left on its Honor for not owning up to having crossed the line at Edgewood in the name of National Security.



First I’d like to address an omission: For many years the CBR NCO School at Ft. McClellan placed Mustard agent on the wrists of students, I was one of them, exposing them to GB and CS gas environments and flamethrowers, but there is no mention of that on the site. Mustard is now known to be a carcinogen.



Cold War Exposures background: While Nazi’s were being tried at Nuremberg and some hanged for their human experimentation the U.S. gave the Japanese experimenters a pass [War Crimes Office 1947]. This was in order to obtain their research results on Chinese, Manchurians, and POW experiments which resulted in many deaths. From those Secret documents it can be readily seen that the Cold War was changing our morality.



You state that DOD is conducting extensive research to find names of those exposed. In the case of 7,839, 1951-1979 Army volunteers, their records were in the hands of the Office of the Surgeon General from 1979 [USAMRICD 2007]. The Edgewood Volunteers 1955-1975 were included in those files. In addition Edgewood Arsenal had the volunteer’s names and all their personal information. They supplied their data bank containing that information to the CIA. [CIA IG report, 6 May 1974] “The following activities were conducted with the Edgewood Arsenal. We obtained a large data base from them. They supplied U.S. Army volunteers for testing our candidate compounds. We transferred funds to them for their efforts.”

[CIA Memorandum 3 May, 1974] “I asked about the listings of peoples names. He said it was a stack a foot high. Names would cross check to their Edgewood ID number.” Among the “other organizations” you mentioned being at Edgewood you failed to mention the CIA and that the Army was a CIA contractor. During the 1977 Senate Hearings CIA’s Admiral Turner promised the Congress that he would find those who were subjects of their unwitting experimentation directly or by funding same. He stated that the agency would aid and compensate victims and the Edgewood Veterans were certainly victims under projects MKULTRA and MKSEARCH. In 2004 he wrote that the agency only found one person, but that he was dead.



The National Academy of Sciences received Volunteer’s information from the Army for a study conducted by its National Research Council, a CIA contractor whose heads were involved in the original research at Edgewood. You point to these studies as Army redemption, as though no one was hurt. You neglected to include important issues say drugs, and you did not mention the final NRC report in 1985 which stated: “An issue of great concern was the relatively small groups of men exposed to psychochemicals and their effects on interpretability. Briefly stated, it was felt at the onset by the panel reviewing psychochemicals that data obtainable from a survey might add little to our understanding of the long term health effects of chemicals tested. However, the limited information available from follow-up on these soldiers does not permit definitive conclusions regarding the nature and extent of possible long-term problems resulting from chemical exposure at Edgewood .” These studies are over two decades old and are virtually irrelevant. For example; today the DOD admits that flashbacks can re-occur in the absence of re-exposure to drugs.



The original case files on Edgewood Volunteers were transferred to the National Archives in Suitland , MD in 1982. [GAO, 1994] Veterans Disability: “The Army’s Medical Research and Development Command in Ft. Detrick , MD , has the names and service numbers of all test participants and a list of chemicals to which the service members were exposed.” NAS supplied our contact information to its IOM in 2000 for another purported study on Edgewood volunteers.

[IOM 2007] “DOD asked IOM to perform a more focused study on long term effects of anticholinesterase agents given to participants.” The IOM committee was not charged with examining past exposures to specific chemicals, like those at Aberdeen/Edgewood and assessing whether they caused disabilities in military personnel.” Edgewood veterans thought this study was to help them, but it is obvious now that this was a Gulf War issue and we were deceptively recruited for it.



Many agencies and commands had the volunteer’s information and the DOD wrongfully resisted releasing our names for decades. It was two Congressmen [Evans & Strickland] who somehow obtained the lists of our names sending them directly to the VA for notification in 2005. The VA Secretary [Nicholson] sent the lists to the DHSD DOD and asked them to find addresses. He was alerted by some of us that the current contact addresses of some 4,000 survivors were in the hands of the IOM.



DOD Experimentation, according to your site, was conducted to evaluate the ability of US Forces to fight on a Chemical and Biological battlefield. You also state that the purpose of the studies was to ensure that the U.S. Military could adequately protect its service members from possible wartime exposures to chemical warfare agents. You describe medicines tested and mention benadryl. There were others including ecstasy EA 1475, radioactive alcohol, Ritalin, Benzedrine, Dexedrine, Lydocaine and Mescaline which Edgewood doctors used to kill Harold Blauer.

[AR 70-25 1962] DA-Use of Medical Volunteers: 2. c. The experiment must be such as to contribute significantly to approved research and have reasonable prospects of yielding militarily important results essential to an Army research program. There is little doubt that this AR was not faithfully observed or followed because these substances did not have any military importance. We allege that it is likely that these compounds had importance to covert CIA operations and that testing humans had great importance to the manufacturers of the drugs who likely paid Edgewood for our services.



In 1993 the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, in response to [GAO Report, 1992] “Human Experimentation” stated: The DOD will, to the extent feasible, make available to the Department of Veterans Affairs information that may be useful in assessing disability claims of veterans. The DOD did nothing for Edgewood Volunteers.



Regarding the security non-disclosures we signed: According to your site in 1993 Deputy Secretary of the DOD issued a memorandum which never reached those for whom it was intended, the volunteers. He stated that volunteers were released from their oath, but in sharp contrast to this memo, in 2006, the VA sent us a letter;

“To former service members who participated in these tests DOD has stated: You may provide details that affect your health to your health care provider. On the other hand, you should not discuss anything that relates to operational information that might reveal chemical warfare vulnerabilities or capabilities.” It would appear that DOD attempted to continue to perpetrate a hoax on volunteers in league with the VA. You see, we did not have copies of the non-disclosures [ US Senate report 1977] which stated that the penalty for violating our oath was punishment under UCMJ, but that Code only applies to active duty personnel. Our oath wrongly, but effectively, kept us out of the VA, and from making applications for medals many of us were promised. Men of Honor, Edgewood Volunteers were silent all those years for naught.





You state that testing was conducted with the volunteers consent and that Volunteers were given study information. This cavalierly implies that we volunteered so we got what we deserved. [U.S. Army IG Report page 84, 1975]

“… most cases the agreement was signed prior to arrival or the first day after arrival. In either case, it was usually signed before a subject was selected for a specific test. Therefore, it was unlikely that meaningful information regarding all hazards to his health were provided the Volunteer prior to his signing the Participation Agreement.” The only known volunteers to have ever received a volunteer information booklet were those participating in 1969. The Participation Agreements included the statement “I am completely aware of all hazards.” The Volunteer’s letters of Commendation stated [DA HQ Edgewood Arsenal 1973]

“… medical volunteer, you deliberately made a commitment to undergo procedures whose outcome could not be fully known in advance.” Obvious it is, the “consents” were nugatory the moment they were signed as is ratified by Edgewood itself.

[GAO Veterans Disability, 1993] “Military procedures have long required that volunteers be fully informed of the nature of the studies in which they participate and the foreseeable risks. However, prior to 1975, these procedures were not always followed.” “ … were not informed about the nature of the experiments, the chemicals to be administered, or potential adverse effects.” Experimentation ended in 1975. The Army IG and the GAO seem to agree that our consents were a sham.



Often you point to “low dose” exposures to somehow exonerate illegal experiments, and the unethical experimenters, who routinely violated their Hippocratic Oath’s.

I am citing only one of my references on dosage. [Army LSD Study, 1980] “The highest single dose known to have been administered to Army Volunteers was approximately 5,250 micrograms. As of 1971 only eight cases have been reported in which seizures have apparently resulted from LSD administration.” You state that the study investigators assured the participants that the exposure levels administered would not result in serious or life threatening side effects, but you reveal that there were 400 substances and that “not all” were harmful and you show “14%” of the agents administered “were lethal” compounds. It would appear that you do not consider seizures serious or lethal compounds lethal.

As a sidebar, note that you erroneously stated IOM, but it was the NRC three volume studies 1980-1982.



Your page of Briefings and Reports does not contain important documents such as the [Army IG Report, 1975] which informs that most procedures and regulations were virtually ignored at Edgewood, nor have you considered the [GAO 1994] report which reveals that there were VOLUNTEER DEATHS at Edgewood and that long term effects to exposures often did not present for 20-30 years and more.











Finally, please note the findings published in the [Psychiatric Annals, November 2007]. Chemical Weapons Exposure: “Interestingly, PTSD rates among veterans who participated in voluntary Chemical Weapons Agents research under controlled conditions, and never were exposed to hostile enemy fire, were found to be higher than PTSD rates for veterans who participated in actual combat, in which the physical wounds inflicted were far more severe. Thus, the psychological trauma of CWA exposure is tantamount to the most intense and traumatizing types of stress found anywhere in human experience.” Apparently the DOD is in denial, because I am acquainted with Edgewood veterans who are PTSD VA compensated and the acknowledged cause was Edgewood .



You state that there was other testing at Edgewood outside the auspices of the Volunteer program. This testing, you suggest, was conducted by various organizations. Why is it you are reluctant to name the CIA, FBN and Army Intelligence? Evidence proves that the CIA funded Army programs at Edgewood for twenty years and the evidence [CIA Family Jewels pg. 413] shows clearly that the CIA supplied drugs to Edgewood given them by manufacturers because they had bad side effects [CIA MORI DOC 1451843]. Pharmaceutical manufacturers gave drugs to the CIA and they delivered them to Edgewood specifically for use on military volunteers and that was despite having themselves written that “No US citizen should be the object of CIA operations.” Obviously volunteers were not informed of these efforts therefore; the Army wrongfully condoned unwitting experimentation along with uninformed witting experimentation.

In 1956 Edgewood changed the name of its psychochemical program to K agents. CIA MKULTRA 1958, Sub-Project-45 in the psychochemical and “K” fields dealt with chemical stressor drugs. “ … the major effort will be related to studies directly concerned with the production and control of the stress reaction in human beings.” In 2005 the Army HRC Awards Branch admitted that an Edgewood Volunteer applicant was in the Edgewood MKULTRA Program. In 1973 contrary to law the CIA destroyed what they thought were all the MKULTRA and the drug files.



The big lie! [Chemical Warfare Laboratories Special Publication 2-13, 1958]. Stated therein: Volunteers would be subjected to “non-hazardous” exposures therefore, it follows that they would not receive hazardous duty pay saving the Army some $55.00 per month, per man. However, Edgewood experimentation was hazardous and similarly stressful to combat therefore, combat related as is noted in

the Supplemental Guidance on Combat Related Special Compensation, established by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 2008. Edgewood Volunteers meet criteria under Hazardous Service and Instrumentality of War. The DOD knew our service was hazardous [Defense Instruction Number 5030.29, 1964] Investigational Use of Drugs: “DOD assumes full responsibility for the protection of humans involved in research under its sponsorship, whether this involves investigational drugs or other hazards.” The Army at large also knew what we were doing was hazardous.



[AR 70-25 1962] DA-Use of Volunteers as Subjects of Research

2. Definition: “ … unusual and potentially hazardous conditions are those which may be reasonably expected to involve risk, beyond the normal call of duty, of privation, discomfort, distress, pain, damage to health, bodily harm, physical injury, or death.” All the latter came to pass. Of twenty-two survivors known to me half, including myself, are VA disabled and therefore, fully know now, that this service was hazardous and that we were all set apart from our fellows psychologically.



1958 Letter of Commendation to Volunteer: “3. You are hereby commended for exposing yourself above and beyond the call of duty.” Cover letter: “The participation of military personnel in these activities contributes materially to the accomplishment of work which is vital to the National Defense.”

[CDRL Special Publication, Edgewood Arsenal, 1961] Medical Research Volunteers, Peacetime Heroes: “ .. they serve far beyond the call of normal duty in a cause that vitally effects the nation’s defense posture.



We were patriotic young men wanting to do something for our country. However, because of those like you, who lack documentation, or do not possess a full understanding of the history in this matter, our services to this nation are denigrated. Rather than to reveal the truth and give just praise to the volunteers you are history revisionists portraying that which you wish had happened at Edgewood . Joining you, just recently the Army HRC Awards Branch denied Volunteers even a lowly ARCOM [HRC Award Branch 2005] “ … service as a CW Volunteer at Edgewood is certainly NOTEWORTY, he is not eligible for consideration of an individual award since the purpose and intent of the Army’s Awards Program is to recognize those soldiers who actively engage in acts of heroism, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service.” Like you, they do not understand. Otherwise moral men with bunker mentalities assault the dignity of yesterday’s heroes. We can no longer allow such actions to stand because we know that somewhere, yet to be found, there is a grateful nation.



I expect a satisfactory response to this return receipt sent letter within seven days of receipt or it will be c.c. addressed along with the documents to many officials who may not see this as nearsightedly as you do.



In the 2003 VA VHI CBR, they admitted that we Edgewood Volunteers were justifiably angry men. If you have seen that in this letter hopefully you have been convinced to understand and accept it, because we have good reason to be hurt and therefore, angry.





Sincerely Yours,

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

If ANYONE has more data about the experiments or knows anything about the problems with the VA or DOD in handling their compensation claims please let me know at testvet at aol.com

Where did it all begin?

This is the html version of the file https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/jmcienian/hamburger/New%20Outline%20expanded.doc.
Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.
Part 1:

Where did it all begin?

America Tests on its Own PreWar: 1
American Indian Tribes in 1860s; chlolera-infected blankets.
In 1900; the “American Army doctors in the Philippines infected five prisoners with a variety of plague and 29 prisoners with beriberi.
In 1915 “a doctor working with government grants exposed 12 prisoners in Mississippi to pellagra, an incapacitating condition that attacks the nervous system.


In 1942 US “Army and Navy doctors infected 400 prisoners in Chicago with malaria in experiments designed to get ‘a profile of the disease and develop a treatment for it.’ Most of the inmates were black and none was informed of the risks of the experiment. Nazi Doctors on trial at Nuremberg cited the Chicago malaria experiments as part of their defense.” 2


Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: 1932-1972 : 3
The US Public Health Service; used penicillin to treat syphilis beginning in 1943, but it purposely withheld it from dealing with certain subjects.
The subjects were not informed they had syphilis.
Mainly black people.



World War II:

Nazi experiments:
Dachau tests with mescaline; Intention is enhanced interrogation through external manipulation: Mescaline.
Goal: "to eliminate the will of the person examined."
Aviation tests: more lethal
Underlining point: unwitting tests with potential / unknown lethal results. +



Important: It is important to address John Marks point: I am not trying to compare the CIA to Nazi’s or consider their experimentations on the same level. I am simply establishing a discourse and examining the flaw in the US decision to go on the defensive rather than embrace the important lessons learned in the Nuremburg trials:
“From the Dachau experiments came the cruelty that man was capable of heaping upon his fellows in the name of advancing science and helping his country gain advantage in war. To say that the Dachau experiments are object lessons of how far people can stretch ends to justify means is to belittle by cliché what occurred in the concentration camps. Nothing the CIA ever did in its postwar search for mind-control technology came close to the callous killing of the Nazi "aviation research." Nevertheless, in their attempts to find ways to manipulate people, Agency officials and their agents crossed many of the same ethical barriers. They experimented with dangerous and unknown techniques on people who had no idea what was happening.” – John Marks

Nuremburg trials:
Focus upon Doctors Trial:


Nazi Defense argument:
Nazi scientist attitude:
All said that issues of moral and personal responsibility are moot in state-sponsored research. What is critical, testified Dr. Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician, is "whether the experiment is important or unimportant." (Marks)
I want to establish the difference between largescale death-count resulting from these experiements and more abstract longterm consequences. The public forum certainly reacts differently to less blatantly macabre images.
The Defense links the Malaria US experiments as akin to Nazi Experiments


Nuremburg Code on Scientific research4
Voluntary consent
Failure to address past:
“By the early 1950s, there were gestures in the direction of a protectionist attitude toward human subjects, but they were in a fairly abstract, philosophical vein rather than in a robust set of institutionalized policies and procedures. An example is the Army's failure to implement a compensation program for prisoners injured in malaria or hepatitis studies when it was contemplated in the late 1940s.” 56



The essential feature of the weak form of protectionism was its nearly wholesale reliance on the judgment and virtue of the individual researcher. Thus when the World Medical Association began deliberations in 1953 on the first Declaration of Helsinki, informed consent was made a far less prominent feature than it had been in the Nuremberg Code, which the medical community found unacceptably legalistic. Helsinki also introduced the notion of surrogate consent, permitting research when individuals are no longer competent to provide consent themselves. These moves place a substantial burden on the self-control of the individual researcher.^sup 5^



The US never adopts this: Big problem: The Nuremberg Code has not been officially adopted in its entirety as law by any nation or as ethics by any major medical association.

Threshold:
Because: The unethical testing that took place in the US wasn’t held responsible and the Nuremberg code was shaky international ‘suggestion’ more than a legal code, this allowed the CIA to not only unethically test, but also evade repercussion.

As World War II faded into the Korean Conflict, and later stemmed into the broader Cold War containment paranoia, America’s foreign policy architects faced a new set of challenges but also the ability to re-examine and redefine the ethical foundation from which they would proceed. However, the Nuremberg Trials failed to hold any past American operations or experiments deemed unethical by the standards there devised, and failed to establish a concrete ethical code in the legislative realm. This failure allowed the Truman and subsequent Eisenhower administration to simply ignore any broad-scale internal scrutiny and policy amendment pertaining to ethics and experimentation.

This is significant because at the time the remnants of the rouge OSS were transferring into the newly formed CIA, a permanent government organization. Within this dramatic time period with the horrific events of WWII fresh upon the international forum a firm foundation of ethical guidelines to research could have stemmed from the Nuremberg Code. However, as the post-war foundation concerning ethical standards was ambiguous, it allotted the CIA the internal flexibility, which would lead it into MKULTRA.

- small group of people deciding on large scale ethics

And thus: America Tests on its Own Post-War:
This is a segway into specific topic of MKULTRA testing:

1951 the US Army: Norfolk Naval Supply Center

“secretly contaminated the Norfolk Naval Supply Center in Virginia with infectious bacteria. ... Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida were the targets of repeated army bio-weapons experiments in 1956 and 1957. Army CBW researchers released millions of mosquitoes on the two towns in order to test the ability of insects to carry and deliver yellow fever and dengue fever. Hundreds of residents fell ill, suffering from fevers, respiratory distress, stillbirths, and encephalitis. Several deaths were reported.” 7

1950: Navy sprays bacteria on San Francisco
Relevance: Later Army bacteria was proposed to be LSD.
One of 6 TSS professionals who worked in the early days of MKULTRA:
“ We thought about the possibility of putting some in a city water supply and having the citizens wander around in more or less happy state, not terribly interested in defending themselves.” (perhaps append a footnote about the French City poisoned with ergot.) (58)
(The research upon large numbers of people “fell to the army chemical corps, which also tested LSD and even stronger hallucinogens. The CIA concentrated on individuals.)


Different Experiments in the US: (After Nurembourg Code)

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: 1932-1972 : 8


The US Public Health Service; used penicillin to treat syphilis beginning in 1943, but it purposely withheld it from dealing with certain subjects.
The subjects were not informed they had syphilis.
Mainly black people.
Given the unethical aspects of this experiment, why was it allowed to continue until stopped by public outcry in 1973? Apparently, the long-term experiment was never seriously questioned – as a matter of bureaucratic inertia – since it had continued for such a long time and was allegedly valuable. Further, when new managers were appointed, these new managers were reluctant to rescind decisions of their mentors. (p. 178, 180)



Harold Blauer 1952:
injected with mescaline in the hospital after consenting the first time, he refused the next 4
The US Army Chemical Corps
Court Case is ideal for my paper:


High Oxygen concentration to premature infants
1953 on consent
Burton v. Brooklyn Doctors Hospital, 452 N.Y.S.2d 875 (1982)


Birth and Evolution of the Agency:
What happened in OSS:

The structure of the OSS affected the Structure of the CIA. As the OSS exploited WW2 as a limitless playground under Donovan, the CIA would be built out of a similar such mentality.

Seeds that would lead to MKULTRA:
"truth drug" committee under Dr. Winfred Overholser, head of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington.


spring of 1943, the committee decided that Cannabis indica—or marijuana—showed the most promise, and it started a testing program in cooperation with the Manhattan Project
White Tests Marijuana as a truth drug
Tests marijuana on suspected Communist soldiers stationed in military camps outside Atlanta, Memphis, and New Orleans. (unwitting)


In 1954, a team was dispatched overseas to perform tests on individuals "representing a Communist-bloc country." 9



Operation Paperclip: a foreshadow of policy to come
Operation Paperclip represented a threshold between the rules of the old “game” and the rules of the new “game” that was to be developed.

Japanese Scientist Shiro Ishii was put on the US payroll post WW2. 10
In a deal from General MacArthur, Ishii “turned over more than 10,000 pages of his “research findings” to the US army, avoided prosecution for war crimes and was invited to lecture at Ft. Derick, the US army bio-weapons research center near Frederick Maryland. “
During the war he headed the Japanese Imperial Army’s bio-warfare unit. Dr. Ishii “had deployed a wide range of biological and chemical agents against Chinese and Allied troops, and had also oepreated a large research center in Manchuria, where he conducted bio-weapons experiments on Chinese, Russian, and American prisoners of war.


He “infected prisoners with tetanus; gave them typhoid-laced tomatoes; developed plague-infected fleas; infected women with syphilis and exploded germ bombs over dozens of POWs tied to stakes.
Nazi Scientist Theordore Benzinger: 11
He “was an expert on battlefield wounds, experiments he gained through explosive experiements conducted on human subjects during the waning stages of WWII.”
He received “a lucrative government contract working as a researcher at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.”



Establish Why I am focusing on MKULTRA:
the CIA was born out of these threshold era
the LSD tests are indicative of a larger idea
enough time has passed with enough court cases to examine the complete run of the subject- its been through the senate and through countless individual court cases: to be specific there is a beginning, a middle, and an end : This allows us to examine why it started, how it was carried out, what legacies and results came from the testing, and how it was addressed and brought to justice.
Birth of MKULTRA and Soviet Fear
The Cold War was beginning- Soviet Russia went from ally to foe very quickly at the end of world war II.


Justification for aggressive policy:

Media Images of Cardinal on Trial combined with shotty intelligence:
Manchurian Candidate
Soviet Testing – (we had former Nazis running around)


This provokes a need to match Soviet Intelligence:
One of the justifications for the CIA to act the way it did; was to justify things they knew were inconsistent with American policy, and restrained by law; by exploiting the need to remain in touch with the enemy, and presupposing that the enemy would examine all possibilities in the all-encompassing cold war; unethical or not. This assumption of communism would justify such proceeding action. “Defense justified offense.” (56)


Cold War context: (budding paranoia)
Talk about the Cardinal
Give reference to this in Japanese action and policy during the war:
“Moreover, the Japanese militarist government at the time feared communism. Therefore, persons who were suspected and arrested as spies of the USSR or communist resisters were tortured to death. This happened sometimes even in the Japanese homeland, but all the more and oftener in China.”12
PART 2: MKULTRA BEGINS


Gottlieb’s purpose:
In a 1953 memo to a researcher, Gottlieb gave an indication of the kinds of mind control issues he was interested in for both offensive and defensive purposes: 'Disturbance of memory; discrediting by aberrant behaviour; alteration of sex patterns; eliciting of information; suggestibility; creation of dependence.'13


Then CIA-inspector Lyman B. Kirkpatrick wrote a 1963 Internal report on MKULTRA which was made public in 1975. 14
He discussed its connection with the bureau of Narcotics:
"TSD (Technical Services Division) entered into an informal arrangement with certain cleared and witting individuals in the Bureau of Narcotics in 1955 which provided for the release of MK-ULTRA materials for such testing as those individuals deemed desirable and feasible."


He Discussed the need for a diverse populace:
"The effectiveness of the substances on individuals at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign," Kirkpatrick wrote, "is of great significance, and testing has been performed on a variety of individuals within these categories."



The Program’s Evolution”


Artichoke
Bluebird
First Bluebird tests
MKULTRA



Actual Incidents that People were tested upon with LSD from the CIA:


Agents:
Wayne Ritchie: Former Deputy Marshall who claimed he was drugged with LSD, before trying to hold up a San Franscisco bar in the 1950s. Ritchie’s case relied in part on MKULTRA operative Ira Feldman. 15


Frank Olson






First Bluebird Test: 16
Tested on 12 (mainly black) subjects of “not too high mentality.” (compares to Dachau)
They were informed that the drug they were to be given was new. The experimenters were aware that “LSD experiments had induced schizophrenia” but still assured the subjects that no “serious damage would happen to them.” 150 micrograms where given



Abroad:


1. The Glickman case points to LSD tampering abroad. As The CIA was forced to admit it’s use cases abroad, and a series of coincidental evidence.


Hospitals:


Velma Orkilov and Linda McDonald were submitted to an entire of depatterning in Cameron’s program.17 Orlikov received at one point 14 shots of LSD. 18


US Public Health Service in Lexington Ky; “As part of a project aimed at finding a substitute for codeine as a mild pain killing,” military contracts arranged by the Office of Naval Research enabled the CIA to test LSD here. Conducted by Dr. Harris Isbell. 19


NYC Pediatrician Dr. Harold A Abramson conducted CIA funded (funded through the Geschiketer Foundation and later the Macy foundation) LSD testing at Mount Sinai Hospital. 20


State Hospital in Michigan:
(1957-60) The CIA administered the drug to unwitting sexual psychopaths at the state hospital in Michigan.21
“The subjects will be selected from the one hundred and forty-two criminal-sexual psychopaths on whom there is an adequate previous investigation…”
“As far as possible, the actual research man administering the drugs will not be aware of the drug he is administering…”


Universities:


100s of unwitting students were given LSD at Harvard in the 60s and 70s. 22
The CIA spent “$286,000 to run tests at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, “between 1952 an 1961”, its linked to the Harvard medical school.
“Subjects were not told they were being given mind-altering drugs, the records show. They were only told they were taking part in a drug study. Students were paid $ 25.”


Air force Experiments at different universities: 23






Prisons:


Dr. Ewen Cameron: Late 1950s: Tried to “reprogram his patients at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute using a combination of drugs…” He was financed by the CIA and aided through the un-proven help of Dr. Louis Gendreau, deputy commissioner of the penitentiary service and head of medical services, as he “consented to using Canada’s prison population as subjects in a wide array of experiments.” 24
1961 : 23 female inmates at Kingston’s Prison were submitted without consent to LSD tests, “sensory deprivation, and the testing of unlicensed drugs.”
“Hundreds of federal inmates were used as test subjects in scientific experiments during the 1960s and 70s. (untested pharmaceuticals, penicillin and anti-stress pills, spent days in dark cells during sensory-deprivation research, and received painful shocks in studies of cigarette smokers)25



In 1963 LSD and the hallucinogenic drug BZ were administered to 8 black inmates.26


Pharmacologist Carl Pfeiffer conducted LSD experiments at Prisoners at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and later at Bordentown Reformatory in NJ.27
He claims he “received full informed Consent” from 80-100 patients at the 2 prisons.





Actual Incidents that People were tested upon with LSD from the ARMY:


James Stanley was given LSD in 1958, “he was then a young soldier who thought he was participating in a test of equipment and clothing.”28 This happened to thousands more. 29


The Army “exposed up to 3,000 soldiers to BZ, a powerful hallucinogen under development as a chemical weapon.”30


“The Air Force conducted experiments with LSD at Baylor University and four other schools as part of a Cold War-era research program.” 100 people received the tests; 31
“The other schools involved in the Air Force's LSD research were Duke University, the University of Minnesota, New York University and the University of Missouri, the GAO said. The research was conducted between 1956 and 1971.”


Look into Project OFTEN; “was started in 1968 jointly with the Army Chemical Crops at Edgewood, MD to study the effects of rare drugs.”32


1949-60s : Edgewood Chemical Arsenal in Maryland33
starting in 1949- over 7000 us soldiers were “unwittingly” experimented upon.
“More than 1000 of the soldiers who enlisted in the experiments emerged with serious psychological afflictions and epilepsy: dozens attempted suicide.”
Look at Lloyd Gamble incident: Posted in next section


Funding


Dr. Charles Geschickter; Georgetown Professor who took 2.2 million dollars in CIA funding over 13 years. 2 interesting points: 34 It was for the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research.
He said that the CIA mislead the Senate Commission in documents related to funding in 1977. “the agency had overstated its role in research projects and had even paid bills for nonexistent services. Geschickter said he did not know where the money actually went.”
In the end, said Geschickter, “the CIA ended up funding research projects that involved treatments for asthma, high blood pressure, cancer and arthritis. The projects were developed by the researchers, not the agency, he said.”
CIA funding helped Dr. Abramson pay for his research that “contributed to the so-called Cronuscomplex theory of severe, chronic asthma in children, which postulates mutual psychological engulfment between mother and child.”35


Society of Investigation of Human Ecology was “auspice” for CIA research and funding. 36
Dr. Ewen Cameron was given money though this at McGill University.



Part III: Aftermath


Senate Hearings:


“The description of the agency's MK-ULTRA efforts that emerged at yesterday's hearing was more a portrayal of a group of bumbling amateurs than of American James Bonds.”37



Lawsuits and Court Cases:


Dr. Ewan Cameron’s patients: 1998 settlement of $750,000 US and multiple $100,000 payments from Canadian government after 9 former patients sued the government. 38
Dorothy Proctor – given LSD in Canadian Prisons in 1960s, sued successfully.


“After more than 10 years of depositions and CIA diversions and delay the lawsuit wound to an end. Finally, at the beginning of the Bush presidency, the CIA settled for the largest sum of money possible without the formal approval of the Attorney-General. To the nine plaintiffs and the lawyers it was a hard-won victory, but it was not enough.” 39


1986: The Court ran into blocks from the CIA and US court system:40
“The latest setback for the Canadians came recently in a Washington courtroom. A U.S. federal court judge said he wouldn't allow CIA station chiefs to testify about an apology they allegedly delivered to the Canadian government. “
In Ottawa, all attempts by External Affairs Minister Joe Clark to get a fair settlement have failed, even though he raised the issue with U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. Now, Clark says a Canadian justice department official soon will get a briefing in Washington "on the facts as the U.S. sees them."



Although the CIA funded Cameron’s operation, because they did not “guide or control” his action, they “are not open to lawsuits under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”41
However, those suing “claim the CIA should have known that the experiments were dangerous” citing the death of Dr. Frank Olson. The suggest that the CIA is responsible for negligence.
"The case is about whether an agency of this government should have allowed this thing to go forward when it was so destructive to people," said Leonard S. Rubenstein, legal director of the Mental Health Law Project and an attorney for the former patients.


“The action was filed on Dec. 11, 1980. The CIA has stonewalled every step of the way. The taking of depositions took years. Judge John Garrett Penn took a full year to rule on a motion to dismiss. In October the CIA filed a motion for summary judgment that was not argued until March 10. Judge Penn has still not ruled on that motion, and the trial cannot proceed until he does.” 42
“There is no national security interest at stake here, but national honor is. The government should settle this case promptly and pay the nominal damages. If this is not done, Judge Penn has a responsibility to decide the motion for summary judgment and move to trial without delay.”




James Stanley:
“Sergeant Stanley first filed a federal lawsuit against the government in 1978, naming as defendants former Central Intelligence Agency director Richard Helms, the University of Maryland (where the experiments were conducted), and two doctors assigned to the project. He accused the government and others of gross negligence and violation of his rights. This suit was dismissed. But the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals allowed last year that he might make a case for injury.” 43


In 1987 the US Supreme Court, “held that legal precedent generally bans damage suits against the government for injuries sustained during military service. They ruled “that the military is exempt from lawsuits by soldiers harmed by programs pursued in the national interest. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a 5-to-4 majority, said allowing such litigation ''would disrupt the military regime.''44
Associate Justice William Brennan dissented, saying that ''serious violations of constitutional rights of soldiers must be exposed and punished.''


1996 won $400,577 in court for being given LSD in the army. 45


Clinton Panel urging restitute for radiation victims; 46


Stanley Glickman : November of 1952 was slipped LSD in Paris by some potential CIA agents. 47


He was found after a week of wandering passed out at a Café and taken to the American hospital in Paris.
“There, according to medical records, he was given an EEG and a calming dose of sodium amytal. Not so, according to Glickman, who claimed in his affidavit that he received electroshock therapy via a catheter up his penis, and was dosed with what seemed to be more hallucinogenic substances. He panicked and checked himself out of the hospital, but soon had himself readmitted, remaining for another seven days during which time he believes he was given yet more hallucinogenic drugs”


an affidavit was filed in 1983 and this went to court in 1999 after his death in 1992.


It was very difficult for him after he saw the 1977 hearings to approach the US government for justice. (Look at this article to go into detail)
“Shortly after watching the hearings, Glickman began seeking answers on his own. He contacted Kennedy's staff and the office of the US Attorney General, to no avail. He was advised he needed a lawyer, but that would take money. Unable to raise funds on his own and perhaps seeking further catharsis, he decided to write a film treatment.”
He met Dean Corren, the Hollywood director of Ragtime who offered to help him. Corren learned the similarity between Stanley’s story of a man with a limp, the Gottlieb’s clubfoot.


“Shortly after finding the CIA documents in Washington, Dean Corren began searching for a lawyer to take up Glickman's case. At least a dozen firms said no before their luck turned. Then, one after another, firms accepted but later handed the case on when their approaches were thwarted by government obfuscation. Time and again, courts simply took the agency's word on what information could be safely released from its files. Even 45-year-old documents were not made available without heavy editing.”


The US government has over the years issued various qualified denials in the course of seeking to have the case dismissed. In one brief, government lawyers assert that 'there is no evidence that TSD (the Technical Services Division, whose Chemical Division was headed by Gottlieb) ever engaged in or funded LSD testing or research overseas'.


Lloyd Gamble48
black solider : 1957 : Gamble was informed that he was to test new military clothing, but instead entered a DD/CIA drug program. (offered extended leave, private living quarters, and more frequent conjugal visits)
As he was given LSD, he tried to kill himself.It took 19 years for him to realize what had happened as the Church hearings took place.
The DD denied his involvement, but a photograph indicting his and others role as volunteers “for a program that was in the highest national security interest,” proved this allegation false.
Consequential Results in Court and for families:


1968 Canadian prison experimentee went to court alleging that LSD flashback caused her to steal a sweater and was acquitted after “a psychiatrist testified that LSD exposure could have long-term negative effects.”49


Velma Orkilov’s involvement in Cameron’s program ruined her life and family: Her daughter said to the Winnipeg Free Press, “She was never a complete person again. It was no joy living in that family. I wonder how we lived through it. It was one long nightmare.” 50 “I suffer from chronic depression which sometimes becomes acute…”51


Linda MacDonald: “Linda MacDonald, a 57-year-old Vancouver woman, was admitted to the Allan when she was 25, for fatigue and depression following the birth of her fifth child. She was put into a drug-induced sleep for at least 86 days. She lost all memory of her life, including the ability to read and write. After she was released, she needed toilet training, and eventually lost her husband and six children.” 5253


Keith Lorenz, studied at Harvard and was given LSD unwittingly. 54
“In his letters, the former student said his involvement in the LSD study had "made dramatic changes" in his life, adding that he had dropped out of college, and left the country for many years. He had difficulty adjusting to the experience ever since, Lorenz added. In a letter to the CIA, he said he planned to sue the government for $ 2 million for harm he had suffered.”


James “Whitey” Bulger: was experimented upon in an Atlanta Prison in exchange for a lessened sentence. This had 2 effects:55
“He continues to suffer side effects from the experiments, including nightmares and insomnia. “
“The experiments could become an issue in court some day - not because Bulger would sue, but because the federal government is investigating a criminal enterprise that authorities believe Bulger runs out of South Boston, controlling many of the non-Mafia rackets in and around Boston. If he is indicted, Bulger's participation in the mind-control experiments could be raised by the prosecution or defense, depending on the circumstances.”


Louis Weinstein ; was administered LSD at the Royal Victoria Hospital in the 1950s. 56
His son, Dr. Harvey Weinstein, a Stanford University psychiatrist, has described his father as "a lost soul . . . a poor, pathetic man with no memory, no life."


Master Sgt. James B. Stanley; says his treatment “resulted in periodic hallucinations, illness, and fits of violence, which ruined his marriage.”57


Stanley Glickman was transformed after LSD treatment.58
“Under a doctor's care, his physical health slowly revived, but he never regained his mental equilibrium. He avoided old friends. Once an avid student, he stopped reading books. He never held a steady job, never had another romantic relationship, and never painted again.”
Institutional Abandonment


Air Force at Baylor59
""No effort has been made by the Air Force to determine if the participants' names are available in the universities' records,'' Conahan told a House Government Operations subcommittee that is looking into the government's human experimentation in the1950s and 1960s.


In a 1977 letter to the CIA, Dr. Miles F. Shore, then-director of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and a professor at Harvard, wrote,
“As far as I can tell, no one who was active in those studies is currently at Mass. Mental Health Center. 'As a result, I have not released any information about the matter and would be just as happy if it were forgotten . . . Further public dissection of this matter can do little good and may do considerable harm.” 60


Canada Mental Hospital: The Commissioner of Penitentiaries inquired in 1968 after the big court case, about the followup that had been in the 1961 study; “Dr. Gendreau said the Penitentiary Service does not have the staff available to look into the matter.” There was no follow up for 30 years. 61


The CIA abandoned and abused its subjects because it viewed their focus ignored their individual interest.
This was the cold war period, when the focus was on spying and counterspying. Thus, the main objective of this mammoth C.I.A. effort, which cost the taxpayers at least $25 million, was to program the experimental subject to do the programmer's bidding, even if it would lead to the subject's destruction. As you reported Aug. 2, 1977, a C.I.A. memorandum of Jan. 25, 1952, asked "whether it was possible to get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation."62



Concealment, Disinformation, and Destruction (CIA Institutional Flaws):


The Clinton Committee on radiation victims, couldn’t identify all those who were tested upon during WWII; 63
''Deliberate attempts by public officials in trusted and often sensitive government positions to conceal the fact of participation from subjects or their families, particularly in the absence of national security justification and for the declared purpose of avoiding potential liability and public embarrassment, are assaults upon the foundations of individual privacy and self-determination.''


The Canadian Prison research was funded through “The society for Human Ecology connected to Cornell University in New York,” 64 that turned out to be a covert front for the US Central Intelligence Agency.”65


Destruction of Files and Deception on MKULTRA’s length


“Richard Helms, in his deposition to Joe Rauh in 1985, admitted that he had destroyed most of the MKUltra documents in 1973, during the government-wide panic caused by Watergate. But MKUltra continued well into the 1970s, and many CIA observers say there is little reason to believe it does not continue today under a different set of acronyms.” 66


The CIA lies about the use of Radiation to the Church Committee:67
1976: the CIA tells the Church Committee that it had never used radiation
In 1991 however, ARTICHOKE documents emerged alluding “that in addition to hypnosis, chemical and psychiatric research, the following fields have been explored… other physical manifestations including heat, cold, atmospheric pressure, and radiation.
Also A 1963 report from the cia’s insperctor general indicates that for more than a decade perivously the agency had been engaged in “research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.
The 1963 report went on to say that CIA director allen Dulles had approved various forms of human experimentation as “avenues to the control of human behavior” including “raditation, electroshock, various fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology, graphology, harassment studies and paramilitary devices and materials.”
1994: Hazel O’Leary (deparment of energy secretary) concluded that the CIA “did explore radiation as a possibility for the defensive and offensive use of brainwashing and other interrogation techniques.”





A 1977 letter from the CIA to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence gives a few pieces of information: 68
The unsigned letter also refers to the 1953 death of a Dr. Frank Olson.
Studies were run at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges, 15 research foundations or drugs companies, 12 hospitals and three prisons.
** '”We should certainly assume that the researchers and institutions that cooperated with the CIA on a witting basis acted in good faith and in the belief that they were aiding the government in a legitimate . . . purpose.' For that reason, the letter states the CIA has a 'moral obligation' to protect the researchers and institutions from 'any unjustified embarrassment or damage to their reputations . . .' by keeping their names secret.”
“One project involved paying $ 375,000 to the building fund -- of a private medical institution which is not named. 'Most of the people and institutions involved are not aware of agency sponsorship,' the letter states.”


NATURE OF THE PROGRAM : The CIA creates a massive amount of confidential information (blackouts in documents and undisclosed information etc), which could help the negatively affected participants in its LSD testing.
Shore, who retired as head of the center last year and is now a scholar in residence at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said in a telephone interview “that all names of study participants were blacked out in documents the facility received from the CIA and he had no information as to who had been given the drug, or their reactions.” 69


The Court upheld the CIA’s “absolute power” in court. (This article goes in depth) In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled to let he CIA keep its sources of information secret, “even if the sources are not confidential and the information itself is not classified.”70


In a 7-to-2 decision written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the court said Congress in 1947 gave the director of central intelligence "very broad authority to protect all sources of intelligence information from disclosure."
Justice Thurgood Marshall, joined by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., agreed that the appeals court erred in ordering the material released. But Marshall said the majority went too far to protect the agency not only from revealing sources but also from revealing what types of information it wanted to collect.
This decision was provoked due to a 1977 inquiry for names of “individuals and institutions” that had performed research in MKULTRA. This request was denied.
The cited reason for the denial was a “1947 law saying the CIA director is required to "protect intelligence sources and methods."
CIA vs. public
The CIA, in a prepared statement, said yesterday's decision in the case, Central Intelligence Agency v. Sims, would "send a powerful message to current and prospective intelligence sources that the agency can, indeed, fulfill their expectations of confidentiality."


Paul Alan Levy, an attorney for Sims and Wolfe, called the ruling a "severe setback for the public's right to learn about abuses by national security agencies and for the principle that decisions of those agencies are subject to judicial review." The agency, he said, would be able to withhold information "even if it does not or cannot show disclosure would be harmful to the national security."


According to one former CIA official, “the program was considered so sensitive that it could not even be included in a secret 1968 study by the CIA itself of the agency's relationships with the academic community.”71


Orders were given that all letters must conceal identities: 72
For instance, a “March 25, 1955, letter from one doctor - whose name is deleted - to another individual - whose name is also deleted - stresses that " all communications MUST BE double enveloped . . . MUST BE addressed" in a certain way and adds that "true or full names MUST NOT appear in any of the correspondence. Reference to personnel may be made by first name and initial or the individual's assigned nom de plume."


CIA Officials were well aware that such actions were unethical. 73
A 1963 report by CIA Inspector General Lyman B. Kirkpatrick said of the drug testing: "The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and outside the agency to be distasteful and unethical."


A Feb. 27, 1950, memo to the CIA's chief of scientific intelligence cautioned of one anonymous researcher: "His ethics might be such that he might not care to cooperate in certain more revolutionary phases of our project."


The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials formulated international standards, henceforth adopted by the united states, that “medical experiments on humans were supposed to be for the good of mankind and carried out only with the full and informed consent of the subjects.” This was deliberately disobeyed.74


1953 letter from one doctor to another about LSD testing cited difficulties stemming from awareness that an experiment was being performed: "It is hoped in the next year that subjects on the (deleted) who are essentially normal from a psychiatric point of view, will be given unwitting doses of the drug for psychoterapeutic purposes. In this way, more valuable experiments will probably be carried out, in spite of hospital conditions.”


At the switch of MKULTRA into the Bureau of Narcotics, the Kirkpatrick report discusses the fictitious denial of the Bureau’s chief’s awareness.
The report added that while "covert testing" was being transferred to the bureau, its chief would disclaim any knowledge of it. 75
Lies about the extent and length of MKULTRA: 76
Jimmy Carter’s CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner to congressional committees and the press that the program “had been phased out in 1963 and had only involved drug experimentation.”
In reality, as the records portray, it had gone until 1973 and “involved a quest to develop techniques for mind control, including electro-shock and psychosurgery.” The CIA wanted to make their Manchurian Candidate scenario a reality and didn’t pause for ethics, public or institutional approval, or failures to achieve their objective.
Legacies


Mind Control and Behavior Modification experiments from MKULTRA were echoed in “violence reduction” research under Reagan in California.
“Two physicians from Harvard, Dr. Frank E. Ervin, a neuropsychiatrist, and Dr. Vernon H. Mark, a neurosurgeon, in a letter to the journal of the American Medical Association, proposed a surgical strategy” to resolve violent race protests after the murder of Martin Luther King. The proposed brain tampering with electric charges and Reagan allowed research to take place in California; also Alabama, Minneapolis, Syracuse etc. Many prisoners were created into vegetables. 77


2. Such testing continues today as can be seen in the first Persian Gulf War.
1 p. 83 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
2 p. 83 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
3 Bad Blood by James H. Jones
4 Fifty years later: The significance of the Nuremberg Code
Evelyne Shuster. The New England Journal of Medicine. Boston: Nov 13, 1997.Vol.337, Iss. 20; pg. 1436, 5 pgs
5 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, The Human Radiation Experiments (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 55-56.
6 Goodbye to all that
Jonathan D Moreno. The Hastings Center Report. Hastings-on-Hudson: May/Jun 2001.Vol.31, Iss. 3; pg. 9, 10 pgs
7 p. 83 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
8 Bad Blood by James H. Jones
9 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washinton Post August 3 1977
10 p. 151 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
11 p. 151 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
12 Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 10 (2000), 179-180. 1. "Factories of Death"
13 Conspiracy; The Observer February 14, 1999
14 The Diaries of a CIA Operative: The Washington Post, September 5th 1997
15 San Francisco Chronicle 2005
16 p. 154 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
17 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
18 Victims of 1950s Mind Control Experiments Settle With CIA; The Washington Post October 5, 1988
19 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washinton Post August 3 1977
20 Abstract: New York Times August 2nd 1977
21 Buncher, The CIA and the Security Debate: 1971-75. Facts on File, Inc: New York, 1976.
22 Harvard Tested LSD on students for the CIA; The Boston Herald, September 30, 1994
23 Cold War LSD test conducted at Baylor; The Houston Chronicle September 1994
24 How a Mad Scientist Went Unchecked; The Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2001
25 LSD ‘guinea pigs’ wins admissions ; The Ottawa Citizen June 23, 2001
26 CIA linked To Mind-Control Drug Experiments; The New York Times, December 4th 1980
27 Abstract: New York Times August 2nd 1977
28 Ex-Soldier wins LSD suit; The Gazette (montreal) March 7th 1996
29 Panel Urges Damages for ‘Immoral’ Tests; The San Francisco Chronicle, March 7th, 1996
30 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
31 Cold War LSD test conducted at Baylor; The Houston Chronicle September 1994
32 CIA Secrets: The New York Times June 16 1980
33 p. 154 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
34 The Gang That Couldn’t Spray Straight; The Washington Post September 21, 1977
35 Dr. Harold A. Abramson is Dead; The New York Times. October 1 1980
36 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washington Post August 3 1977
37 The Gang That Couldn’t Spray Straight; The Washington Post September 21, 1977
38 How a Mad Scientist Went Unchecked; The Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2001
39 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
40 CIA Victims Still Suffering; Toronto Star January 7th 1986
41 Victims of 1950s Mind Control Experiments Settle With CIA; The Washington Post October 5, 1988
42 A CIA Experiment: The Aftermath; The Washington Post (editorial) August 8th 1987
43 High Court Sides with Military; The Christian Science Monitor June 26, 1987
44 High Court Sides with Military; The Christian Science Monitor June 26, 1987
45 Ex-Soldier wins LSD suit; The Gazette (montreal) March 7th 1996
46 Panel Urges Damages for ‘Immoral’ Tests; The San Francisco Chronicle, March 7th, 1996
47 Conspiracy; The Observer February 14, 1999
48 p. 154 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
49 How a Mad Scientist Went Unchecked; The Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2001
50 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
51 Victims of 1950s Mind Control Experiments Settle With CIA; The Washington Post October 5, 1988
52 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
53 Canada settles ’63 brainwash case; USA TODAY November 19, 1992
54 Mass. Hospital Tried to Keep Lid on LSD Tests;; The Boston Globe January…
55 Whitey Bulger, while inmate, was volunteer in LSD studies; The Boston Globe January 11, 1994
56 A CIA Experiment: The Aftermath; The Washington Post (editorial) August 8th 1987
57 High Court Sides with Military; The Christian Science Monitor June 26, 1987
58 Conspiracy; The Observer February 14, 1999
59 Cold War LSD test conducted at Baylor; The Houston Chronicle September 1994
60 Harvard Tested LSD on students for the CIA; The Boston Herald, September 30, 1994
61 How a Mad Scientist Went Unchecked; The Ottawa Citizen June 24, 2001
62 Human Guinea Pigs Are American as Apple Pie; The New York Times (editorial) January 11th 1994.
63 Panel Urges Damages for ‘Immoral’ Tests; The San Francisco Chronicle, March 7th, 1996
64 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
65 Prison Therapist wanted to try Brainwashing; The Ottawa Citizen October 5, 1998
66 Mind Control: My Mother, The CIA and LSD, The Observer October 16, 1994
67 p. 160 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
68 Harvard Tested LSD on students for the CIA; The Boston Herald, September 30, 1994
69 Mass. Hospital Tried to Keep Lid on LSD Tests;; The Boston Globe Januar
70 Court Gives CIA Full Power to Keep its Sources Secret; Washington Post April 17th, 1985
71 Lengthy Mind-Control Research by CIA Is Detailed: Washington Post August 3rd 1977
72 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washinton Post August 3 1977
73 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washington Post August 3 1977
74 Lengthy Mind Control Research by CIA is Detailed; The Washington Post August 3 1977
75 The Diaries of a CIA Operative: The Washington Post, September 5th 1997
76 p. 106 Whiteout; Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Clair
77 Human Guinea Pigs Are American as Apple Pie; The New York Times (editorial) January 11th 1994.

New evidence on nuclear bomb tests points to cover up

New evidence on nuclear bomb tests points to cover up

Serviceman's blood showed 'hallmarks of radiation'
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
Read Comments (2)
THE MINISTRY of Defence (MoD) has been accused of "a cover-up of a cock-up" in the wake of new evidence that it failed to investigate genetic damage among the veterans of Britain's nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s.

Confidential correspondence from 1984 reveals that the Medical Research Council (MRC) discovered DNA defects in a test veteran that were characteristic of radiation damage. But the council was never asked to look for similar problems in other veterans.

The revelation is seen as the "smoking gun" that could bring justice for the veterans, who have been campaigning for compensation for illnesses they blame on radiation for decades. They recently launched legal action against the MoD, which has promised an inquiry.


Between 1952 and 1962 Britain exploded 46 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere around Australia and Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean. The explosions were witnessed by more than 21,000 British servicemen, many dressed only in shorts and sandals.

A series of government investigations since the 1980s has failed to find conclusive proof that the servicemen suffered as a result. But now documents released to the national archives and obtained by the Sunday Herald suggest that this was because they were looking in the wrong place.

On January 24, 1984, H John Evans of the MRC clinical and population cytogenetics unit at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh wrote "in confidence" to a senior MRC official in London. Evans recounted how his staff had delayed analysing blood samples from Christmas Island veterans because they were expecting to take part in a nationwide study of veterans' health.

The Edinburgh researchers specialised in examining people exposed to radiation to check for aberrations in their chromosomes, a sign of genetic damage. But in the end their services were not required, Evans said, because the MoD commissioned the then National Radiological Protection Board to conduct a purely statistical analysis instead.

Evans then ordered the blood samples from the Christmas Island veterans to be examined. "I had thought that it was highly unlikely that we would find any chromosome abnormalities," he said. "But it turns out that one of these patients in fact has quite a high degree of chromosome damage in his blood cells."

This "would not be inconsistent with having received radiation exposure 20 or more years ago", Evans observed.

Sue Roff, an expert from the Centre for Medical Education at Dundee University, has been researching the health problems of the test veterans since 1995. "The scientists and military leaders who conducted the tests knew there were hazards. But few safety measures were put in place and no proper blood studies were done after the men returned," she said."It has always seemed to me to be a cover-up of a cock-up. And that's the kinder interpretation."

The type of chromosome damage found by Evans had "all the hallmarks of radiation", according to Dudley Goodhead, the former director of the MRC's radiation unit at Harwell, Oxfordshire. The under-secretary of state for defence, Kevan Jones, met with test veterans two weeks ago, and agreed to investigate the health of their children and grandchildren.

Dennis Hayden, of the Combined Veterans' Forum International, accused the MoD of making a "politically-motivated" decision to bypass chromosome studies. "Any advanced technology showing the mark of the bomb in the DNA of veterans does not suit the government's agenda," he said.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

My step father was one of the American Air Force personnel used in these Cold War experiments in Nevada.

Government’s Responsibility For Veterans Right To Know

Government’s Responsibility For Veterans Right To Know


ISSUE: The Department of Defense has a long history of using military personnel in covert medical experiments. During deployments military personnel are exposed often to dangerous conditions involving chemicals and biological substances that are harmful to human health.

At the time of the exposures the true nature of the long term health effects have not been understood.

These individuals are then discharged from military service with no knowledge of the exposures , or the possible consequence to their health and the health of their families.

Background: In 2002, the Department of Defense revealed some of the details of chemical and biological tests that were conducted during the Vietnam Era which is now known as the Shipboard Hazards and Decontaminations/Defense (SHAD). These experiments were a part of a larger program known as Project 112, which included land based testing.

These revelations are the latest in a long line of human subject research which included the atomic tests, both in the Pacific and in Nevada’s above ground test site. Then there were the chemical weapons experiments and drug testing such as LSD and other drugs from pharmacuetical companies conducted at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland from 1955 thru 1975, and biological weapons experiments conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, from 1952 thru 1972 and ended when the United States signed the 1972 BWTC.

There are also the issue’s of Agent Orange exposure during Vietnam, and other herbicides used during the same time frame, Agents Blue, White etc, although Agent Orange appears to have the worst dioxins in it. From the First Gulf War there is the issue of depleted uranium, the exposures from the weapons destroyed at Kamisayah, Iraq in March 1991 that released Sarin and mustard agents into the atmosphere. Then there were the experimental vaccines used during the Gulf War, and exposures to pesticides in the Gulf that are forbidden to be used in the United States.

When men and women in uniform put their lives at risk in service to this nation, their rights to informed consent must be paramount. Further it is incumbent on the government that these citizens be informed about any adverse health conditions resulting from exposures during their service to their country.

This information will be an immediate full disclosure of what is known about their exposures and their potential threats to their health and the health of their families. In the past, this information has been intentionally withheld by various government agencies and officials, as well as, withheld from appropriate congressional committees.

It is also known that the Department of Defense has placed parameters on the health studies in the past conducted by the National Academies of Science (NAS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that ignored known studies that show medical conditions and long term health consequences of exposures.

There are two pertinent studies that show medical conditions caused by some of the exposures that should be used by the Veterans Administration in adjudicating the claims of the veterans used in the Cold War experiments involving chemical agents they are the 1994 National Institute of Health Report Toxicity of the Organophosphate Chemical Warfare Agents GA, GB, and VX: Implications for Public Protection found online at http://www.ehponline.org/members/1994/102-1/munro-full.html it is dated January 1, 1994 and the SIPRI Report Delayed Toxic Effects of Chemical Warfare Agents located at http://www.sipri.org/contents/cbwarfare/Publications/pdfs/cw-delayed.pdf

From Page 40 the known medical problems:

To conclude this section, the closing observations from Spiegelberg’s monograph
will be cited (these remarks do not refer exclusively to organophosphorus
CW agents) [2]:
A psychiatric delayed-effect syndrome was found as a result of systematic investigations
on former members of CW production and testing stations for the Wehrmacht. In
terms of frequency, two groups of symptoms can be distinguished–each consisting of
four separate symptoms or signs.
(1) The great majority of persons examined showed:
(a) persistently lowered vitality accompanied by marked diminution in drive;
(b) defective autonomic regulation leading to cephalalgia, gastrointestinal and
cardiovascular symptoms, and premature decline in libido and potency;
(c) intolerance symptoms (alcohol, nicotine, medicines);
(d) impression of premature aging.
(2) Further, one or more symptoms of the second group were found:
(a) depressive or subdepressive disorders of vital functions;
(b) cerebral vegetative (syncopal) attacks;
(c) slight or moderate amnestic and demential defects;
(d) slight organoneurological defects (predominantly microsymptoms and singular
signs of extrapyramidal character).
Our results are a contribution to the general question of psychopathological delayed
and permanent lesions caused by industrial poisoning. On the basis of our studies of
the etiologically different manifestations of toxication, the possibility of a relatively
uniform–though equally unspecific–cerebro-organic delayed effect syndrome is conceivable.

Given the fact that most of the veterans used in the Cold War experiments are in the age groups of 50-90, some urgency should be given by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to accept this known research to aid in the adjudication of the veterans claims that are filed as a result of the medical problems from the exposures.

Many of the veterans are deceased, many of the surviving spouses have no idea that their spouses were even used in any of these experiments, and that they may even have a claim for veterans benefits, if the cause of death may have been linked to the exposures.

This GAO Report dated February 2008 shows that the Department of Defense has been less than diligent in locating the veterans used in these experiments. http://fhp.osd.mil/CBexposures/pdfs/2008SHAD_GAO.pdf


To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology,

Since 2003, DOD has stopped actively searching for individuals who were potentially exposed to chemical or biological substances during Project 112 tests, but did not provide a sound and documented basis for that decision. In 2003, DOD reported it had identified 5,842 service members and estimated 350 civilians as having been potentially exposed during Project 112, and indicated that DOD would cease actively searching for additional individuals. However, in 2004, GAO reported that DOD did not exhaust all possible sources of information and recommended that DOD determine the feasibility of identifying additional individuals. In response to GAO’s recommendation, DOD determined continuing an active search for individuals had reached the point of diminishing returns, and reaffirmed its decision to cease active searches. This decision was not supported by an objective analysis of the potential costs and benefits of continuing the effort, nor could DOD provide any documented criteria from which it made its determination. Since June 2003, however, non-DOD sources—including the Institute of Medicine—have identified approximately 600 additional names of individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112. Until DOD provides a more objective analysis of the costs and benefits of actively searching for Project 112 participants, DOD’s efforts may continue to be questioned.
DOD has taken action to identify individuals who were potentially exposed during tests outside of Project 112, but GAO identified four shortcomings in DOD’s current effort. First, DOD’s effort lacks clear and consistent objectives, scope of work, and information needs that would set the parameters for its effort. Second, DOD has not provided adequate oversight to guide this effort. Third, DOD has not fully leveraged information obtained from previous research efforts that identified exposed individuals. Fourth, DOD’s effort lacks transparency since it has not kept Congress and veterans service organizations fully informed of the progress and results of its effort. Until DOD addresses these limitations, Congress, veterans, and the American public cannot be assured that DOD’s current effort is reasonable and effective.
DOD and VA have had limited success in notifying individuals potentially exposed during tests both within and outside Project 112. DOD has a process to share the names of identified service members with VA; however, DOD has delayed regular updates to VA because of a number of factors, such as competing priorities. Furthermore, although VA has a process for notifying potentially exposed veterans, it was not using certain available resources to obtain contact information to notify veterans or to help determine whether they were deceased. Moreover, DOD had not taken any action to notify identified civilians, focusing instead on veterans since the primary impetus for the research has been requests from VA. DOD has refrained from taking action on notifying civilians in part because it lacks specific guidance that defines the requirements to notify civilians. Until these issues are addressed, some identified veterans and civilians will remain unaware of their potential exposure.

Table 3: Veterans Who VA Has Notified of Their Potential Exposure as of December 2007
OUSD (P&R) Project 112 OUSD (AT&L) task order Total
Number of names DOD has provided to VA 6,739 6,440 7,531 20,710
Names with no numeric identifier (e.g., social security number or service number) 666 385 none 1,051
Names of veterans known to be deceased 2,157 733 500 3,390
Possible number of veterans to be notified (i.e., veterans who have an identifier and are not documented as deceased) 3,916 5,322 7,031 16,269
Number of notification letters mailed by VA 319a 4,438 2,987 7,744
Percentage of veterans sent notification letters for those known not to be deceased and for which VA has a numeric identifier 8% 83% 42% 48%

Page 25 GAO-08-366
Chemical and Biological Defense

As the above table shows, the veterans are not being notified and when the veterans do file claims with the Veterans Administration, they are being told that they can not prove they were exposed during service, despite being assigned to Fort Detrick, Edgewood Arsenal, Dugway Proving Grounds, they are asked questions that are impossible for them to answer for instance, what chemicals or substances were you exposed to, on what day, how much of the substance was inhaled, ingested etc. Who else was present and what were the circumstances.

Despite submitting the EPA report on the toxins located at Edgewood Arsenal in the drinking water wells (that were not capped until 1978) and the surface water and soil of the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Grounds, veterans are told that they can not prove how much of the water was consumed by them and what toxins were in that particular glass of water. This gets to be absurd, on the other hand of the same argument, how many glasses of the water is safe to drink? Since the Army has been dumping and burying wooden barrels and metal barrels that have since rusted out and the toxins have entered the water system from which the wells drew from, the aquifer was found to be so contaminated in 1978 that all water wells on Edgewood Arsenal and the town of Edgewood were ordered closed and the government paid to pipe clean water in from out of the area.

Here is the list of toxic material found at Edgewood http://cfpub1.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/ccontinfo.cfm?id=0300421

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND (EDGEWOOD AREA)
Contaminants
Site Profile | Aliases | Operable Units | Contacts
Actions | Contaminants | Site-Specific Documents
The below list only includes contaminants identified as contaminants of concern (COCs) for this site. COCs are the site-specific chemical substances that the health assessor selects for further evaluation of potential health effects. Identifying contaminants of concern is a process that requires the assessor to examine contaminant concentrations at the site, the quality of environmental sampling data and the potential for human exposure.
Media Contaminant Contaminant Group
Groundwater 1,1,1,2-TETRACHLOROETHANE VOC
Soil 1,1,2,2-TETRABROMOETHANE VOC
Groundwater 1,1,2,2-TETRACHLOROETHANE VOC
Groundwater 1,1,2-TRICHLOROETHANE VOC
Groundwater 1,1-DICHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater, Surface Water 1,1-DICHLOROETHYLENE VOC
Groundwater 1,2,4-TRICHLOROBENZENE Base Neutral Acids
Groundwater 1,2-DICHLOROBENZENE VOC
Groundwater, Surface Water 1,2-DICHLOROETHANE VOC
Groundwater 1,2-DICHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater, Surface Water 1,2-TRANS-DICHLOROETHYLENE VOC
Groundwater 1,4-DICHLOROBENZENE Base Neutral Acids
Soil 2-HEXANONE VOC
Sediment 2-METHYLNAPHTHALENE PAH
Sediment 4,4-DDE Pesticides
Sediment, Soil 4,4-DDT Pesticides
Groundwater ACETONE VOC
Groundwater ALUMINUM (FUME OR DUST) Metals
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil, Surface Water ANTIMONY Metals
Soil AROCLOR 1248 PCBs
Soil AROCLOR 1254 PCBs
Soil AROCLOR 1260 PCBs
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil, Surface Water ARSENIC Metals
Groundwater, Soil BARIUM Metals
Groundwater BENZENE VOC
Soil BENZO(B)FLUORANTHENE PAH
Groundwater BENZOIC ACID Base Neutral Acids
Soil BENZO[A]ANTHRACENE PAH
Sediment, Soil BENZO[A]PYRENE PAH
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil BERYLLIUM Metals
Groundwater BORON OXIDE Inorganics
Groundwater, Soil, Surface Water CADMIUM Metals
Groundwater CALCIUM Metals
Soil CALCIUM CARBONATE Inorganics
Groundwater CARBON DISULFIDE VOC
Groundwater CARBON TETRACHLORIDE VOC
Sediment CHLORDANE Pesticides
Groundwater CHLOROBENZENE VOC
Groundwater CHLOROFORM VOC
Groundwater, Soil CHROMIUM Metals
Groundwater CIS-1,2-DICHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater COBALT AND COMPOUNDS Inorganics
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil, Surface Water COPPER Metals
Groundwater CYANIDE Inorganics
Soil DIBENZO(A,H)ANTHRACENE PAH
Groundwater ETHYLBENZENE VOC
Soil HEPTACHLOR Pesticides
Soil HEPTACHLOR EPOXIDE Pesticides
Soil HEXACHLOROBENZENE Base Neutral Acids
Groundwater HEXACHLOROBUTADIENE Base Neutral Acids
Groundwater, Soil HEXACHLOROETHANE VOC
Soil INDENO(1,2,3-CD)PYRENE PAH
Solid Waste INORGANICS Inorganics
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil, Surface Water IRON Metals
Groundwater, Sediment, Soil, Surface Water LEAD Metals
Soil LEWISITE Base Neutral Acids
Groundwater, Sediment MAGNESIUM Metals
Groundwater, Soil, Surface Water MANGANESE Metals
Groundwater, Soil MERCURY Metals
Groundwater, Surface Water METHYLENE CHLORIDE VOC
Soil MUSTARD GAS Organics
Groundwater NICKEL Metals
Groundwater NITRATE Inorganics
Solid Waste NOT PROVIDED Not Provided
Soil OIL & GREASE Oil & Grease
Soil, Solid Waste PCBs PCBs
Sediment PHENANTHRENE PAH
Soil PHOSGENE Pesticides
Soil PHOSPHORUS (YELLOW OR WHITE) Inorganics
Groundwater POTASSIUM Metals
Groundwater, Surface Water SELENIUM Metals
Groundwater, Soil SILVER Metals
Groundwater SODIUM Metals
Groundwater TETRACHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater TETRACHLOROETHYLENE VOC
Groundwater, Soil THALLIUM Metals
Groundwater TOLUENE VOC
Groundwater TRANS-1,2-DICHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater TRICHLOROETHENE VOC
Groundwater, Surface Water TRICHLOROETHYLENE VOC
Groundwater VANADIUM (FUME OR DUST) Metals
Groundwater, Surface Water VINYL CHLORIDE VOC
Solid Waste VOC VOC
Groundwater XYLENES VOC
Groundwater, Soil, Surface Water ZINC Metals



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DISCLAIMER: Be advised that the data contained in these profiles are intended solely for informational purposes use by employees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for management of the Superfund program. They are not intended for use in calculating Cost Recovery Statutes of Limitations and cannot be relied upon to create any rights, substantive or procedural, enforceable by any party in litigation with the United States. EPA reserves the right to change these data at any time without public notice.


It is past time that the government accepts responsibility for the veterans that may have been harmed in experiments that even during the Cold War violated the Nuremberg Codes of 1947. The Nuremberg Codes were written primarily by the United States, France and Great Britain to enable them to try the Nazis who had used the concentration camps in human experiments, then less than six years later, in 1953 the Secretary of Defense Wilson signed a top secret Memorandum of Understanding to allow the military to conduct these chemical, biological, nuclear and drug experiments. These experiments today are illegal no matter who signs what or who thinks they can be done, federal laws as well as international law bans all human experiments involving these conditions.

The veterans, many of whom were enticed by the promise of awards, medals, extra pay, easier working conditions and in some cases patriotic pleas, “your nation needs you”. The promise of the Soldiers medal were not kept, nor any other awards due to the secrecy of the experiments, how can you give a soldier a medal for a program that does not “exist”? The soldiers also signed non-disclosure statements, National Security agreements that basically stated if the experiments were discussed you would be tried and sent to Leavenworth for twenty five years. This kept many men from telling their problems to doctors, and how they imagine how their medical problems started.

At this point in fairness due to the lack of thorough follow up medical care after their use in the experimental programs, all of the veterans used in any of these programs, from SHAD, Operation 112, Fort Detricks Biological experiments, the experiments conducted at Dugway Proving Grounds and the drug and chemical weapons experiments at Edgewood Arsenal should all be given full medical care from the Veterans Administration, it is the least the government could do for these veterans and their families.

In addition if these veterans have any of the medical problems shown in the SIPRI study or the Jan 1994 NIH report the benefit of the doubt should be given to the veterans and compensation claims should be approved, the veterans were there, and environmental exposures are just as bad as intentional exposures, and after 30-60 years it will be very hard to separate the differences, if the men have the medical problems, they should be helped.

The history shows that the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration have not gone the extra steps needed to help these veterans and their families, since the experiments were first exposed in 1975, by the release of the Department of the Army Inspector Generals Report on Human Experimentation. The subsequent studies the 1993 Veterans at Risk Report, the 1994 Senate Committee Report known as the Rockefeller Commission, the broken promises of then Secretary of defense Richard Cheney in 1991 and Acting VA Secretary Anthony Princippi to help the veterans of the WW2 era experiments and the Cold War experiments.

In November 2004 the Detroit Free Press did another expose of the human experiments and the lack of care and follow up by the government, David Zeman contacted then VA Secretary Anthony Princippi and he responded that he thought that those men had been helped and if they hadn’t the VA would immediately get them the help they deserved. It is now four years later and the veterans and their families are still waiting, why?

your government at work

From: Fraud@gao.gov
To: TESTVET@aol.com
Sent: 10/30/2008 11:23:01 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: GAO FraudNet Contract #52625


This responds to your October 10, 2008, Internet submission to the GAO FraudNet questioning why veterans/widows are not being properly cared for or compensated from the human/cold war experiments at Edgewood Arsenal.

We reviewed your information and found that the situation you describe is not within the scope of any on-going GAO work. Therefore, in accordance with GAO FraudNet policy to forward instances of wrongdoing to executive agencies for their review, we referred your concerns to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the Inspector General (DVA/OIG), for their review and whatever action they deem appropriate.

GAO is responsible for assisting Congress in carrying out its oversight responsibilities pertaining to government programs, activities and functions. Generally, this involves examining the programs and operations of federal departments and agencies, rather than reviewing singular allegations of wrongdoing or poor performance in connection with specific matters.

If you have additional information, you may provide it directly to the (DVA/OIG), at their address: 810 Vermont Avenue, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20420, Main Number (202) 565-8620, Hotline Number (800) 488-8244; or Fax # (202) 565-7936. Their e-mail address is: vaoighotline@mail.va.gov .




Thank you for your interest.

FraudNet
Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, N.W. mail stop 4T21
Washington, DC 20548
fraud@gao.gov

Acid Dreams the book online

Acid Dreams by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain

Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account -- part of it gleaned from secret government files -- tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early 1950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history. Book jacket.
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You can read the entire book thru this link Myself I just started it enjoy learn some more history

Mar/Apr 2008 VVA Magazine

Mar/Apr 2008 VVA Magazine

The DoD’s Force Health Protection and Readiness operation has set up a trio of chemical/biological exposure databases. It is DoD’s responsibility to collect and validate chem/bio exposures to service members while on active duty, and to maintain these data bases. It is the responsibility of the VA to inform veterans of their exposures and the benefits to which they may be entitled, and to advise these
veterans of procedures to follow if they have health concerns.

One data base, which is now basically completed, contains more than 6,300 names of veterans who participated in mustard and lewisite experiments in the 1940s. Some 4,600 of these veterans were exposed to mustard and/or lewisite. Data were collected in the mid-1990s, although DoD does not have dose information.
The second data base, which is not necessarily complete, has more than 6,440 names of veterans who participated in the Project 112/SHAD tests between 1963 and 1973. Work on this data base commenced in 2000; active searching for names was ended in 2003, although DoD says it will “continue to pursue all leads from veterans.” Individual exposure data are not part of the data base, as many documents are still classified.

The third data base, which contains approximately 10,000 names, including some 1,800 who participated in tests with no active agent involved, deals with a variety of other chem./bio exposures between World War II and today. These include: LSD exposures; experiments at Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick in Maryland; and experiments at 19 total locations, information about which DoD is obtaining at the Edgewood Historical Office, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and Dugway Proving
Ground in Utah, among other sites. DoD does have detailed exposure, treatment, and test information in this data base.

In these tests, more than 400 different compounds were involved. They included 46 chemical agents; biological agents and experimental vaccines; hallucinogens, including LSD; treatments, including atropine; and medicine, like Benadryl, Ritalin, and Dapsone.

All of those who participated in these experiments volunteered to do so. They signed consent forms that would not be valid today. Any veteran or survivor who has questions or information about the testing that was conducted is urged to call this toll-free number: 1-800-497-6261. DoD is seeking information on where tests were
held – they are not sure that they’ve “got them all,” and specific information on individual exposures.

DoD is also creating a data base containing rosters of troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injury
(TBI). This will be shared with the VA.
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