Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence
Mr. Chairman: In my letter to you of July 15, 1977, I reported our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project conducted from 1953-1964. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella project" under which certain sensitive subprojects were funded, involving among other things research on drugs and behavioral modification. During the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee investigations in 1975, the cryptonym became publicly known when details of the drug-related death of Dr. Frank Olsen were publicized. In 1953 Dr. Olsen, a civilian employee of the Army at Fort Detrick, leaped to his death from a hotel room window in New York City about a week after having unwittingly consumed LSD administered to him as an experiment at a meeting of LSD researchers called by CIA.
Most of what was known about the Agency's involvement with behavioral drugs during the investigations in 1975 was contained in a report on Project MKULTRA prepared by the Inspector General's office in 1963. As a result of that report's recommendations, unwitting testing of drugs on U.S. citizens was subsequently discontinued. The MKULTRA-related report was made available to the Church Committee investigators and to the staff of Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health. Until the recent discovery, it was believed that all of the MKULTRA files dealing with behavioral modification had been destroyed in 1973 on the orders of the then retiring Chief of the Office of Technical Service, with the authorization of the DCI, as has been previously reported. Almost all of the people who had had any connection with the aspects of the project which interested Senate investigators in 1975 were no longer with the Agency at that time. Thus, there was little detailed knowledge of the MKULTRA subprojects available to CIA during the Church Committee investigations. This lack of available details, moreover, was probably not wholly attributable to the destruction of MKULTRA files in 1973; the 1963 report on MKULTRA by the Inspector General notes on page 14: "Present practice is to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs."
When I reported to you last on this matter, my staff had not yet had an opportunity to review the newly located material in depth. This has now been accomplished, and I am in a position to give you a description of the contents of the recovered material. I believe you will be most interested in the following aspects of the recent discovery:
How the material was discovered and why it was not previously found;
The nature of this recently located material;
How much new information there is in the material which may not have been previously known and reported to Senate investigators; and
What we believe the most significant aspects of this find to be.
To begin, as to how we discovered these materials. The material had been sent to our Retired Records Center outside of Washington and was discovered sent to our Retired Records Center outside of Washington and was discovered there as a result of the extensive search efforts of an employee charged with responsibility for maintaining our holdings on behavioral drugs and for responding to Freedom of Information Act requests on this subject. During the Church Committee investigation in 1975, searches for MKULTRA-related material were made by examining both the active and retired records of all branches of CIA considered at all likely to have had association with MKULTRA documents. The retired records of the Budget and Fiscal Section of the Branch responsible for such work were not searched, however. This was because financial papers associated with sensitive projects such s MKULTRA were normally maintained by the Branch itself under the project file, not by the Budget and Fiscal Section. In the case at hand, however, the newly located material was sent to the Retired Records Center in 1970 by the Budget and Fiscal Section as part of its own retired holdings. The reason for this departure from normal procedure is not known. As a result of it, however, the material escaped retrieval and destruction in 1973 by the then-retiring Director of the Office as well as discovery in 1975 by CIA officials responding to Senate investigators.
The employee who located this material did so by leaving no stone unturned in his efforts to respond to FOIA requests. He reviewed all listings of material of this Branch stored at the Retired Records Center, including those of the Budget and Fiscal Section and, thus, discovered the MKULTRA-related documents which had been missed in the previous searches. In sum, the Agency failed to uncover these particular documents in 1973 in the process of attempting to destroy them; it similarly failed to locate them in 1975 in response to the Church Committee hearings. I am convinced that there was no attempt to conceal this material during the earlier searches.
Next, as to the nature of the recently located material, it is important to realize that the recovered folders are finance folders. The bulk of the material in them consists of approvals for advance of funds, vouchers, accountings, and the like -- most of which are not very informative as to the nature of the activities that were undertaken. Occasional project proposals or memoranda commenting on some aspect of a subproject are scattered throughout this material. In general, however, the recovered material does not include status reports or other documents relating to operational considerations or progress in the various subprojects, though some elaboration of the activities contemplated does appear. The recovered documents fall roughly into three categories:
First, there are 149 MKULTRA subprojects, many of which appear to have some connection with research into behavioral modification, drug acquisition and testing or administering drugs surreptitiously.
Second, there are two boxes of miscellaneous MKULTRA papers, including audit reports and financial statements from "cut-out" (i.e., intermediary) funding mechanisms used to conceal CIA's sponsorship of various research projects.
Finally, there are 33 additional subprojects concerning certain intelligence activities previously funded under MKULTRA which have nothing to do either with behavioral modification, drugs, and toxins or with any other related matters.
We have attempted to group the activities covered by the 149 subprojects into categories under descriptive headings. In broad outline, at least, this presents the contents of these files. The activities are placed in the following 15 categories:
1. Research into the effects of behavioral drugs and/or alcohol:
17 subprojects probably not involving human testing;
14 subprojects definitely involving tests on human volunteers;
19 subprojects probably including tests on human volunteers. While not known, some of these subprojects may have included tests on unwitting subjects as well;
6 subprojects involving tests on unwitting subjects.
2. Research on hypnosis: 8 subprojects, including 2 involving hypnosis and drugs in combination.
3. Acquisition of chemicals or drugs: 7 subprojects.
4. Aspects of magicians' art useful in covert operations: e.g., surreptitious delivery of drug-related materials: 4 subprojects.
5. Studies of human behavior, sleep research, and behavioral changes during psychotherapy: 9 subprojects.
6. Library searches and attendance at seminars and international conferences on behavioral modification: 6 subprojects.
7. Motivational studies, studies of defectors, assessment, and training techniques: 23 subprojects.
8. Polygraph research: 3 subprojects.
9. Funding mechanisms for MKULTRA external research activities: 3 subprojects.
10. Research on drugs, toxins, and biologicals in human tissue; provision of exotic pathogens and the capability to incorporate them in effective delivery systems: 6 subprojects.
11. Activities whose objectives cannot be determined from available documentation: 3 subprojects.
12. Subprojects involving funding support for unspecified activities connected with the Army's Special Operations Division at Fr. Detrick, Md. This activity is outline in Book I of the Church Committee Report, pp. 388-389. (See Appendix A, pp. 68-69.) Under CIA's Project MKNAOMI, the Army Assisted CIA in developing, testing, and maintaining biological agents and delivery systems for use against humans as well as against animals and crops. The objectives of these subprojects cannot be identified from the recovered material beyond the fact that the money was to be used where normal funding channels would require more written or oral justification than appeared desirable for security reasons or where operational considerations dictated short lead times for purchases. About ,000 was involved during this period 1953-1960: 3 subprojects.
13. Single subprojects in such areas as effects of electro-shock, harassment techniques for offensive use, analysis of extrasensory perception, gas propelled sprays and aerosols, and four subprojects involving crop and material sabotage.
14. One or two subprojects on each of the following:
"Blood Grouping" research, controlling the activity of animals, energy storage and transfer in organic systems; and stimulus and response in biological systems.
15. Three subprojects canceled before any work was done on them having to do with laboratory drug screening, research on brain concussion, and research on biologically active materials to be tested through the skin on human volunteers.
Now, as to how much new the recovered material adds to what has previously been reported to the Church Committee and to Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health on these topics, the answer is additional detail, for the most part: e.g., the names of previously unidentified researchers and institutions associated on either a witting or unwitting basis with MKULTRA activities, and the names of CIA officials who approved or monitored the various subprojects. Some new substantive material is also present: e.g., details concerning proposals for experimentation and clinical testing associated with various research projects, and a possibly improper contribution by CIA to a private institution. However, the principal types of activities included have, for the most part, either been outlined to some extent or generally described in what was previously available to CIA in the way of documentation and was supplied by CIA to Senate investigators. For example:
Financial disbursement records for the period 1960-1964 for 76 of the 149 numbered MKULTRA subprojects had been recovered from the Office of Finance by CIA and were made available to the Church Committee investigators in August or September 1975.
The 1963 Inspector General report on MKULTRA made available to both the Church Committee and Senator Kennedy's Subcommittee mentions electro-shock and harassment substances (pp. 4, 16); covert testing on unwitting U.S. citizens (pp. 7, 10-12); the search for new materials through arrangements with specialists in universities, pharmaceutical houses, hospitals, state and federal institutions, and private research organizations (pp. 7, 9); and the fact that the Technical Service Division of CIA had initiated 144 subprojects related to the control of human behavior between 1953-1963 (p. 21).
The relevant section of a 1957 Inspector General report on the Technical Service Division was also made available to the Church Committee staff. That report discusses techniques for human assessment and unorthodox methods of communication (p. 201); discrediting and disabling materials which can be covertly administered (pp. 201-202); studies on magicians' arts as applied to covert operations (p. 202); specific funding mechanisms for research performed outside of CIA (pp. 202-203, 205); research being done on "K" (knockout) material, alcohol tolerance, and hypnotism (p. 203); research on LSD (p. 204); anti-personnel harassment and assassination delivery systems including aerosol generators and other spray devices (pp. 206-208); the role of Fort Detrick in support of CIA's Biological/Chemical Warfare capability (p. 208); and material sabotage research (p. 209). Much of this material is reflected in the Church Committee Report, Book I, pp. 385-422. (See Appendix A, pp. 65-102).
The most significant new data discovered are, first, the names of researchers and institutions who participated in the MKULTRA project and, secondly, a possibly improper contribution by CIA to a private institution. We are now in possession of the names of 185 non-government researchers and assistants who are identified in the recovered material dealing with the 149 subprojects. The names of 80 institutions where work was done or with which these people were affiliated are also mentioned.
The institutions include 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 penal institutions. While the identities of some of these people and institutions were known previously, the discovery of the new identities adds to our knowledge of MKULTRA.
The facts as they pertain to the possibly improper contribution are as follows: One project involves a contribution of 5,000 to a building fund of a private medical institution. The fact that a contribution was made was previously known; indeed it was mentioned in a 1957 Inspector General report on the Technical Service Division of CIA, pertinent portions of which had been reviewed by the Church Committee staff. The newly discovered material, however, makes it clear that this contribution was made through an intermediary, which made it appear to be a private donation. As a private donation, the contribution was then matched by federal funds. The institution was not made aware of the true source of the gift. This project was approved by the then DCI, and concurred in by CIA's top management at the time, including the then General Counsel who wrote an opinion supporting the legality of the contribution.
The recently discovered documents give a greater insight into the scope of the unwitting drug testing but contribute little more than that. We now have collaborating information that some of the unwitting drug testing was carried on in safehouses in San Francisco and New York City, and we have identified that three individuals were involved in this undertaking as opposed to the previously reported one person. We also know now that some unwitting testing took place on criminal sexual psychopaths confined at a State hospital and that, additionally, research was done on knock-out or "K" drug in parallel with research to develop pain killers for cancer patients.
These, then are the principal findings identified to date in our review of the recovered material. As noted earlier, we believe the detail on the identities of researchers and institutions involved in CIA's sponsorship of drugs and behavioral modification is a new element and one which poses a considerable problem. Most of the people and institutions involved are not aware of Agency sponsorship. We should certainly assume that the researchers and institutions which cooperate with CIA on a witting basis acted in good faith and in the belief that they were aiding their government in a legitimate and proper purpose. I believe we all have a moral obligation to these researchers and institutions to protect them from any unjustified embarrassment or damage to their reputations which revelation of their identities might bring. In addition, I have a legal obligation under the Privacy Act not to publicly disclose the names of the individual researchers without their consent. This is especially true, of course, for those researchers and institutions which were unwitting participants in CIA-sponsored activities.
Nevertheless, recognizing the right and the need of both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Subcommittee on Health to investigate the circumstances of these activities in whatever detail they consider necessary. I am providing your Committee with all of the names on a classified basis. I hope that this will facilitate your investigation while protecting the individuals and institutions involved. Let me emphasize that the MKULTRA events are 12 to 25 years in the past. I assure you that the CIA is in no way engaged in either witting or unwitting testing of drugs today.
Finally, I am working closely with the Attorney General and with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare on this matter. We are making available to the Attorney General whatever materials he may deem necessary to any investigation he may elect to undertake. We are working with both the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare to determine whether it is practicable from this new evidence to attempt to identify any of the persons to whom drugs may have been administered unwittingly. No such names are part of these records, but we are working to determine if there are adequate clues to lead to their identification; and if so, how to go about fulfilling the Government's responsibilities in the matter.
