In the 1950s, when he was director of the CIA Allen Dulles and under the name of MKULTRA Project , a series of investigations and experiments began to manipulate human behavior and study its consequences. Through its Scientific Division, and with a budget of 6% of the Agency's total, experiments began with various methods (hypnosis, sensory deprivation and even the administration of LSD and other chemical substances) to alter brain functions and study human behavior. The experiments began with volunteers but did not achieve the expected results since the agents were not used thoroughly and, in addition, the subjects were conditioned to know that they were going to be tested. So, within the MKULTRA Project the Operation Midnight Climax program was created. (Operation Midnight Climax).
This program, with a suggestive name, was going to investigate the effects of LSD and other drugs on anonymous citizens who would never know that they were human guinea pigs. To do this, the CIA hired several prostitutes and set up several brothels in which the citizens who contracted this type of service were going to be drugged and monitored (microphones, cameras and even mirrors behind which the CIA agents checked the show live ). The problem is that it got out of hand and, as a result of excessive doses of LSD or mixing it with alcohol, a client jumped out of the window thinking that he could fly. LSD was ultimately dismissed by researchers because its effects were too unpredictable. So, if you were in San Francisco in the 1950s and hired the services of an escort in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood , you were still used as guinea pigs and the CIA recorded you «with your ass in the air «. They also had establishments of this type in New York.
Operation Midnight Climax came to light in the spring of 1963 thanks to a report by agent John K. Vance who brought it to the attention of the Office of the Inspector General (organization in charge of controlling that the governmental and military organisms work in accordance with the established policies). The establishments were closed and the operation was cancelled, but the MKULTRA Project remained in force until it was uncovered by The New York Times in the 1970s. In 1975, two investigative commissions were created in the US Congress to uncover that Machiavellian project. Despite the fact that most of the documentation related to the project was destroyed by Richard Helms , director of the CIA at that time, thanks to the testimony of several participants and some documents found, it was possible to demonstrate the CIA's macabre project.
Illustration:The Psychotronic Herald