Most who are familiar with MK-Ultra, think of the Central Intelligence Agency's interest in mind-control, as just a crazy 60's experiment that involved LSD. But that was only a small part of it. The CIA's interest in mind-control, extended into various fields, from the esoteric (Project Stargate), to assassination (Phoenix Program), to torture (Human Ecology Fund) and various others.
The research into mind control was a resounding success; and not only is the science freely available to prove it, but the practice resulting from it is well documented.
I initially found the Human Ecology Fund referenced in a short article Julian Assange wrote on torture and surveillance in 2007, where he cited research from Saint Martin's University's Professor of Anthropology, David H Price.
According to research and experiences by Professor Price and a number of other scientists, the funding from the CIA into academia, after the approval of MK-Ultra, was "extraordinary", and "massive". Most of it was also covert, and a large amount of scientists did not know who they were doing the research for, until years later.
However most of Price's research revolves specifically around the Human Ecology Fund, a covert CIA front which gave grants mainly to Anthropologists, Sociologists and Psychologists among others, for research on 'stress in humans'.
Let's not not forget though, that Government agencies such as the Office of the Coordinator of Information (OCI), and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, pre-CIA), had already worked with scholars, under the blanket of the "war effort" during World War 2. After the war, the National Security Council Directive 4/A (December 1947), gave a mandate to the CIA, to engage in covert actions both at home and abroad, as the Cold War began to unfold. From there the CIA developed a deep, but secret involvement with academic organizations such as the American Anthropological Association (AAA), to name one out of many.
Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE)
For context, the theory of Human Ecology is defined as "a way of looking at the interactions of humans with their environments and considering this relationship as a system. In this theoretical framework, biological, social, and physical aspects of the organism are considered within the context of their environments".
The project began in 1954, when CIA director, Allen Dulles himself, recruited respected Neurologist Harold G. Wolff - who had done work on stress, the physiological mechanisms of pain, and had also experimented with the induction of migraines. Cardiologist Lawrence E. Hinkle was also recruited by Dulles. As Price puts it, Dulle's idea for the SIHE, was to "identify effective methods of persuasion and interrogation". However, Dulle's first asked the two doctors to provide them with a review of the scientific literature on "brainwashing" techniques, which was presented to Dulles in 1960.
The idea was simple, as the CIA admits in its own 1966 study; using private foundations, was the most effective way to conceal the CIA 's involvement in research funding. And it was "particularly effective for democratically-run membership organizations, which need to assure their own unwitting members and collaborators, as well as their hostile critics, that they have genuine, respectable, private sources of income". (US Senate 1976: 182-183)
Wolff began to recruit through his connections in the scientific community. One of them was Margaret Mead, who shared the mailing list for the Institute of Intercultural Studies with Wolff. Mead was another MK-Ultra scientist - and also the wife of Gregory Bateson, a British scientist involved with the Tavistock Institute, who carried out mind control operations in the US, together with the CIA's Harold Abramson.
In 1961, the SIHE changed its name to the Human Ecology Fund, Inc, (HEF) and was reorganized. It established itself in Cornell University's Medical School, with James L Monroe as its executive director - a man that oversaw a study for the Air Force, on Korean War prisoners.
Harold G Wolff, died in 1962, a year before MK-Ultra birthed the Kubark Interrogation Manual. A revolutionary text on mind control that was used throughout the 3rd world by covert US groups, to torture, and teach torture to puppet dictatorships.
In 1964, MK-Ultra psychologist David Rhodes, took over executive director duties for HEF. He was responsible for various psychotic drug experiments, including dosing unsuspecting people with LSD in aerosol form. The victims would be lured from bars, to CIA 'house parties', where they would be drugged and experimented on. And despite this, the Human Ecology Fund was still viewed as a highly respectable science program. All thanks to the power of legal secrecy.
How They Did It
Several strategies were developed to maintain the image of legitimacy of the Human Ecology Fund.
Constructing a Facade of Legitimacy
History Professor Alfred W. McCoy, points out, in his writings on MK Ultra, that the use of big-name scientists by these fronts, gave them an air of legitimacy and sophistication, which made recruits interested in them to further their careers.
After all, extremely influential people like B.F. Skinner, Erwin Goffman, and Karl Rogers (who as I pointed out on another article, used the Hegelian Dialectic as a basis for his psychological Rogerian Dialectic) were being given grants by these fronts, and sometimes these provided networking opportunities.
Finding Unwitting Scientists
While some scientists were well aware of what they were doing, others conducted their research unwittingly. This made it easier for the CIA to quickly find researchers, and avoid a lengthy security clearance process. This also prevented scientists who might be worried about involvement with the CIA affecting their career, from refusing.
Psychiatrist Raymond Prince, didn't find out until much later, that his research in Nigeria on "transcultural psychological studies" with the Yoruba people, was funded by the Human Ecology Fund, "to collect psychocultural data on cultures and countries of interest to the CIA for psychological warfare purposes". Additionally he was also to report on the Yaruba's use of drugs, then-unknown to the West.
Out-of-Context Research
Most scientists were not told that they would conduct 'mind-control' or 'torture' research, instead they would be conducting research on "stress"; "self-image and reaction to isolation", "psychological effects of circumcision", "identification of individuals prone to schizophrenia", "comparative learning behavior", "research on sleep", "child-rearing antecedents of dependency and affiliation", etc. Which CIA scientists would then synthesize into the Kubark Interrogation Manual.
This diversification of research, also made it difficult to discern the CIA's interests to the casual observer. And research like "Craniological racial analysis", and "antecedents of revolution", might give the impression to some now, that some of the research was funded as a distraction - although that might not be the case.
Just 'Private Clients'
The money is given from the Human Ecology Fund to the scientists, who rarely questioned the supposed private clients. But in the cases they did question, the HEF would just outright lie to them.
Extras such as construction of facilities and equipment, usually kept the academics happy.
It's also important to point out that the Church Committee also found that ‘CIA funding was involved in nearly half the grants of the non-Big Three foundations [Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie] in the field of international activities’.
Covert Key Scientists
Certain key individuals did have to qualify for top secret clearance, which usually made them aware at least that they were working for a government group. Professor Price says that these scientists are sometimes not made aware of any parallel projects, and the "key individuals" are "managed unilaterally". Their work is sometimes published with classified, and unclassified versions.
Others of course, knew exactly what they were doing. And Wolff himself wasn't always entirely shy about his research, as he also publicly published ‘Every man has his breaking point: The conduct of prisoners of war’, in 1960, through his Human Ecology Fund.
Private Sector Connections
Former CIA chief John Cladwell King, used his CEO position in the Amazon Natural Drug Company, to team up with Anthropologists to search for plants with pharmaceutical properties in the Amazonia. Drugs were a central area of mind-control research.
The Fruits of Labor
In 1977 the US Senate held hearings on various controversial CIA operations, including MK-Ultra, with CIA psychologist John Gittinger mentioning the Human Ecology Fund. This turned out to be one of multiple failed attempts, at rearing an agency obviously out-of-control. And unfortunately by 1972, a portion of MK Ultra records were destroyed by the agency - so we can imagine how much more psychotic this operation became.
Dr. John Gittinger testified to the Senate on the results:
"Brainwashing was largely a process of isolating a human being, keeping him out of contact, putting him under long stress in relationship to interviewing and interrogation, and that they could produce any change that way without having to resort to any kind of esoteric means". (US Senate 1977: 62)
The Human Ecology Fund was a great success for MK-Ultra. And the fruits of its research can be found in the resulting Kubark Interrogation Manual.
Thanks to ethnographic fieldwork, cross-cultural models of stress were successfully created. Pleasure and pain in the context of sex, was studied and applied to torture. And drugs were found and developed, to supplement various operations. Others studied propaganda, counterinsurgency, and revolutions, and their findings were applied to help the CIA overthrow countries during the Cold War.
An example of how the out-of-context research was applied into the context of torture and interrogation, is child conceptual development. The Kubark manual describes that certain people can be induced into a child-like regressive state by torture. Or as they call it "Coercive Interrogation".
Another product of their labor was recruitment. Various cultural and psychological studies on Chinese or Russian individuals, also had recruitment as a goal by identifying suitable personality profiles. Others examined with how they dealt with stress, under the excuse of finding a way to protect their newly recruited agents, from Communist interrogation.
On part 2, I will go into some of the psychological methods and concepts found in the Kubark Interrogation Manual.
Just a few examples of funded research by the Human Ecology Fund. Source: Wikileaks file, pg 4.
Sources
Julian Assange article on torture and surveillance
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/On_the_take_and_loving_it
"Buying a piece of anthropology Part 1: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological
research for the CIA" by Professor of Anthropology, David H. Price
https://file.wikileaks.org/file/AT-june07-Price-PT1.pdf
"Buying a piece of anthropology Part 2: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological
research for the CIA" by Professor of Anthropology, David H. Price
https://file.wikileaks.org/file/AT-Kubark_Pt_2--Price.pdf
Torture, interrogation and intelligence
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Torture,_interrogation_and_intelligence
"The AAA, the CIA and the ethical problems inherent in secret research"
"In Ethics and the Profession of Anthropology: Dialogue for Ethically Conscious
Practice, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban ed. 29-49. Second Edition. Walnut Creek, CA:
AltaMira Press."
Human Ecology Theory
Kubark Interrogation Manual
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm#kubark
"Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond" (Includes David Rhode's LSD experiments)
Gregory Bateson/Tavistock "Staff publications online"
http://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/428/
National Security Council Directive 4/A (December 1947)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP57-00384R000100090011-2.pdf
"CRS: Lawfulness of Interrogation Techniques under the Geneva Conventions, September 8, 2004"
Congressional Research Service: Report RL32567