A San Jose man who claimed the CIA secretly had given him LSD in 1957 as part of a mind-control experiment -- causing him to try to hold up a San Francisco bar in a fit of paranoia -- offered enough evidence of possible drugging to go to trial on his $12 million damages suit, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel cited what appeared to be an admission by a former operative in the CIA program, in a sworn deposition in February 2003, that he had slipped LSD into one of Wayne Ritchie's drinks.
"I drugged guys involved in about 10, 12 (instances),'' former federal narcotics agent Ira Feldman, who worked for the CIA's Project MKULTRA, told Ritchie's lawyer. "I didn't do any follow-up. ...You just back away and let them worry like this nitwit, Ritchie.
SF Gate article
The decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel cited what appeared to be an admission by a former operative in the CIA program, in a sworn deposition in February 2003, that he had slipped LSD into one of Wayne Ritchie's drinks.
"I drugged guys involved in about 10, 12 (instances),'' former federal narcotics agent Ira Feldman, who worked for the CIA's Project MKULTRA, told Ritchie's lawyer. "I didn't do any follow-up. ...You just back away and let them worry like this nitwit, Ritchie.
This is what gets me. This kind of stuff goes on all the time, and the government denies it, makes the victims out to be tin-foil-hat cranks. And everybody buys it. No matter how many times the truth turns out to be what they were denying all along - usually many, many years later, so I guess the statute of limitations passes for most of it, if anybody could ever actually prove anything. Or maybe nobody cares anyway.
The CIA program, a response to reports of brainwashing of American prisoners during the Korean War, was an attempt to find chemicals or techniques that could control human consciousness.
According to testimony at congressional hearings in the 1970s and other records, the CIA and federal narcotics agents started giving mind-altering drugs to unsuspecting government employees, private citizens and prison volunteers in the early 1950s and continued to do so for at least a decade.
At least one suit beside Ritchie's has gone to trial. A New York federal jury rejected a damages claim by a purported MKULTRA victim in 1999.
According to testimony at congressional hearings in the 1970s and other records, the CIA and federal narcotics agents started giving mind-altering drugs to unsuspecting government employees, private citizens and prison volunteers in the early 1950s and continued to do so for at least a decade.
At least one suit beside Ritchie's has gone to trial. A New York federal jury rejected a damages claim by a purported MKULTRA victim in 1999.
There are some real nasty stories out there, people. And everybody wants to call the claimants nuts and conspiracy theorists. How many times do they have to be proven to have been telling the truth before we start believing some of this shit? Bring it right on up to the administration in the White House just in the past three years. How many times have their lies been proven, and we are still buying their bullshit.
What is it with us?
If you want some real fun reading some time, start Googling MKULTRA. And remember this post when you start shaking your head and refusing to believe what you find. I'll admit that some of the stuff I have read in the past has been pretty far out, but it doesn't have to get any further out than that our government, or a virtually unaccountable agency working under our government, had a program for ten years (yeah, they don't do that kind of stuff any more - bridge, anybody?) where they secretly drugged private citizens. Does it? If you're only mildly curious, and don't want to make a search, I'll even give you this for the low price of just one click.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
