Cia Documents Describing Human Radiation Experiments (Mkultra)

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FROM: Advisory Committee Staff Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments CIA Documents Describing Human Radiation Experiments The CIA has located three additional documents that describe on their face CIA support for human experiments involving radiation as part of project MKULTRA.’The CIA has informed staff orally that the radiation research described in one of the documents (Attachment 3) was the cover story for the underlying psychological research that the CIA was really interested in, and that it did not fund the radiation work. The attached documents are redacted copies that were publicly released by the CIA in the 1970s. The Committee has requested that the CIA declassifi the documents in fbll as soon as Document 1 is a CIA memo (undated, but probably fiom around 1958) concerning MKULTRA Subproject 86, which involved “[e]stablishing and substantiating the ‘bonafides’ of agent andor staff personnel through techniques and methods other than interrogation.” The methods included (A) the polygraph, (B) fingerprinting and other physical descriptions, and (C) “artificial means of establishing positive identification” through covert marking systems. The memo describes the following suggested techniques for the last category: 1. Radio-isotopes, with predetermined half lives, can be selectively implanted andor injected. 2. Radiologically opaque foreign bodies selectively implanted andor injected into predetermined sites in the human body. 3. Specific circulating antibodies artificially produced by selective antigen sensitization that are alien to the habitat in question. The CIA apparently failed to notice these documents when it previously searched the MKULTRA files. Set Interim Report, at E-1.2 for a description of MK’ULTRA.

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Committee staffhave not been able to determine whether the above described, or similar, radiation techniques were ever tested on humans. No other documents in the extant and publicly released files on Subproject 86 mention the proposed radiation research described herein. Document 2 is a CIA memo dated May 29, 1963 describing Subproject 140, which pMCipally involved human testing of drugs - “pharmacological and clinical investigations of Agency interest will be conducted; these investigations will encompass clinical testing and feasibility testing of drugs affecting human behavior.” This memo then notes that the CIA will also investigate “covert marking systeins,” as noted above under Subproject 86. The memo does not indicate whether such investigations would involve the use of radioisotopes, as proposed under Subproject 86. The memo also states that the investigator will “[mJaintain an investigational cover activity for backstopping and use in conducting clinical evaluation and Document 3 is a letter dated March 30, 1965, fiom Dr. James A. Hamilton concerning research under MKULTRA Subproject 140 (at that time renamed MKSEARCH # 3). The letter is requesting a grant to continue research on the “Measurement of Thyroid Function in the P~CTperi\llT1.”~The letter notes that the funding will also support “a new series of experiments on 100 prisoner-subjects, in which radio-active iodine uptake of the thyroid and T-4 uptake of redcells, and sewed other measures which we have developed, are being related to previously The CIA has told staffthat the radiation research described in this letter concans the wver activity relating to independent work of Dr. Hamilton, and that the CIA was interested only in non-radiation research activities involving the testing and effects of drugs. Dr. Hamilton has informed staffthat the CIA provided him h d s to set up and operate a laboratory, whereby he could do his own research but also do research for the CIA at their request. Dr. Hamilton stated that he therefore set up a lab in the Vacaville California Prison Medical Facility and did radioisotope studies to measure thyroid uptake in male prisoners as part of his own research in understanding the effects of the thyroid on post-partum depression. The stated that the prisoners were paid and were informed about what he was doing.’ He stated hther that the CIA never utilized the lab before his relationship with CIA was made public and the lab was shut down. He states that he did, however, provide information to the CIA on the effccts of LSD and other drugs based on his clinical experience as a psychiatrist. Dr. Hamilton also stated that he did experiments concerning covert markers using flourescents, but not radiation, on himself and his assistants. The “puupcrium” is d e f d as the state of a woman while bearing a child or the period immediately thcrcaftcr - it., the post-parturn period. Dr.Hdm said he u d d send the Commitkc a bibliography of his publications on this

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As noted in the Interim Report, on at least one other occasion the CIA fbnded radiation - research as a cover for other activities, when in the 1950s it provided fbnds for the construction of a wing of Georgetown University Hospital through Dr.Charles F. Geschickter, who used the wing for his own radiation research. (Interim Report, p. E-1.3.) Document 4 is a letter fiom Ruth Faden, on behaif of the Advisory Copnittee, to the Acting CIA Director requesting expedited declassification of these and other documents.