The Fairshake Files opens the declassified record on Project MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s covert program to research behavioral modification, interrogation, and chemical influence during the Cold War.
This chapter begins with a fear that obsessed American intelligence: the idea that a human mind could be “scrubbed” and rewritten. From show trials and public confessions to POW statements that sounded impossible, the question becomes policy.
The search for an invisible weapon turns into a system, and then into a program with a name. This is American intelligence history, declassified documentation, and true crime with context and receipts.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- The Cold War “brainwashing” panic and why it hit Washington like a psychological contagion
- The early precursor programs (BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE) and what they were designed to do
- The pivot point: LSD enters the picture and the stakes change overnight
- Allen Dulles authorizes the next step, and the project becomes MK-ULTRA
- Sidney Gottlieb steps forward as the chemist who will operationalize the mandate
- The ominous early signal of where this leads, including the Frank Olson case
SOURCES & CITATIONS
- Project MK-ULTRA (CIA FOIA Reading Room)
- BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE declassified documents (CIA FOIA Reading Room)
- U.S. Senate reporting and hearings on CIA behavioral modification research
- Frank Olson files and archival reporting tied to documented releases
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