MK-Ultra

The CIA mind control experimentation program of the 1950s and 1960s

Overview

MK-Ultra ran from 1953 into the early 1970s as a program of experiments on behavior modification, including the dosing of unwitting subjects with LSD. Most records were destroyed in 1973 on the order of retiring director Richard Helms, but the 1975 Church Committee and 1977 document discoveries forced public accounting. Congressional hearings documented harm to unknowing participants and led to executive orders tightening rules on human experimentation. The program remains the canonical case of research without consent in intelligence history.