A psychiatrist who analysed over 1,500 declassified government documents has alleged that the CIA ran a coordinated mind-control programme during the Cold War, seeking to turn ordinary individuals into unwitting assassins. Dr Colin Ross, speaking on the Alchemy American podcast, said projects such as MKUltra and Project Artichoke aimed to create 'Manchurian candidates' – operatives programmed to carry out violent acts without conscious memory.
Dr Ross, a specialist in trauma-related disorders, claimed the CIA used hypnosis, brain electrode implants and electric shock on unsuspecting subjects. 'They used whoever they could get their hands on,' he said, 'hypnotizing them, using brain electrode implants and electric shock, all in an effort to create the super spy.' The ultimate goal, he added, was to produce operatives who could commit espionage or murder and later have no recollection of their actions.
According to Dr Ross, declassified CIA and military documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and archival research in the 1990s reveal that the US Army tested approximately 120 different drugs in mind-control experiments, exposing at least 1,500 people to LSD. Some accounts suggest the total may have reached 4,000. These admissions came during the Senate's Church Committee investigations in the mid-1970s, which uncovered widespread abuses within US intelligence agencies.
Dr Ross cited Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Manson as figures who may have crossed paths with intelligence-linked mind-control networks. However, these connections remain disputed among historians and intelligence researchers. The CIA's MKUltra programme, led by chemist Sidney Gottlieb, ran from 1953 to 1973 and involved unethical experiments including drug administration, sensory deprivation and hypnosis, often without subjects' knowledge.
Before MKUltra, the CIA operated Project Bluebird, later renamed Project Artichoke, which began in April 1950. Early activities included testing on human subjects, with a team travelling to Japan in July 1950 to test methods on suspected individuals. The programmes were exposed in 1975, prompting congressional investigations and outrage over the ethical violations.
