The Secret Agenda

According to the Central Intelligence Agency's Fact Book, the United States has carried on foreign intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis. Under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, the NSC (National Security Council) and the CIA were established. 

Five months after the CIA's creation, the NSC held its first meeting. James Forrestal, the Secretary of Defense, pushed for the CIA to begin a 'secret war' against the Soviets. Forrestal's initiative led to the execution of psychological warfare operations (psy-ops) in Europe. It was decided that the communist threat took priority over constitutional rights. A Presidential Secret Order had the effect of greatly increasing the CIA's powers. 

The concept of running a secret 'black' project was no longer novel. In 1941, Roosevelt decided, without consulting Congress, that the US should proceed with the utmost secrecy to develop an atomic bomb. Secrecy shrouded the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb program) to the extent that Vice President Harry Truman knew nothing about it. The project meant that by 1947, the government had already gained vast experience in the initiation of secret operations. The existence of 'black projects' funded by 'black budgets' was withheld not only from the public, but also from Congress for reasons of national security. 

In 1949, Congress enacted provisions permitting the Agency [CIA] to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempting the CIA from many of the usual limitations on the expenditure of federal funds. They exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "functions, names, officials, titles, salaries, or number of personnel employed." 

One of the main areas to be investigated by the CIA was mind control. Many other branches of the government took part in the study of this area. Under the protection of 'national security', these branches embarked on a wide range of macabre programs, including assassination squads, brain washing programs, civilian spying, drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, fomenting civil wars, and toppling foreign governments. 

The initial CIA mind control projects brought encouraging results. One team was determined to create a 'truth serum'. A number of Nazi chemical specialists (brought into the US via Operation Paperclip) began to work closely with the American secret services. They worked from American laboratories, developing poison and nerve gases, despite their active and known involvement in the Holocaust. 

1n 1977, an important MKULTRA administrator was taken before a Senate hearing to answer important questions about CIA mind control projects. He revealed that the CIA had indeed funded a series of such operations. The programs were code named MKULTRA, MKACTION, MKNAOMI, ARTICHOKE, and BLUEBIRD, which involved people being used as guinea pigs in mind experiments. Many subjects lost their sanity and at least two people died. 

MKULTRA involved the use of drugs, sensory deprivation, religious cults, microwaves, psychological conditioning, psychosurgery, brain implants, and other areas of research. It consisted of 149 sub-projects plus another 33 closely related sub-projects, all funded through the black budget. However, from the 1950s to 1962 most of the original records, documents, and research papers were deliberately destroyed. 

The Senate's Church Committee did find some records during its investigation in 1976. However it noted that the practice of MKULTRA was "to maintain no records of the planning and approval of test programs." Miles Copeland, a former CIA officer of some rank, said, "The congressional sub-committee which went into this got only the barest glimpse." 

Diligent use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the US helps to cast light on the advances that have been made in controlling the way people think and act – and how it is possible to sap their will to resist. The FOIA allows the most humble citizen to demand the disclosure of documents, although inevitably some will be heavily censored or not released at all. That is how much of the information in this book has been pieced together.

It is, however, an incomplete picture. What the mind controllers were and are doing may be only hinted at in a memo footnote or in the memoirs of a retired researcher. Nevertheless, there is more than enough here to show that secret new techniques are being exploited that are no longer in the realm of science fiction. We must all be aware of this threat so that those who wish to take liberties with democracy and with our freedom to think are deterred. 

                                                                                                                         Anjin Hawke