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In 2003, Patricia Derian, who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the
Carter Administration
wrote, "Through these U.S. military and intelligence agencies the
United States government is sending a dangerous and double message. If
this continues, it will subvert our entire human rights policy."
In understanding the CIA's role in human rights, there are challenging problems of ethics.
John R. Stockwell,
a CIA officer who left the Agency and became a public critic, said of
the CIA field officers: "They do not meet the death squads on the
streets where they are actually chopping up people or laying them down
on the street and running trucks over their heads. The CIA people in San
Salvador meet the police chiefs, and the people who run the death
squads, and they do liaise with them, they meet them beside the swimming
pool of the villas. And it is a sophisticated, civilized kind of
relationship. And they talk about their children, who are going to
school at UCLA or Harvard and other schools, and they do not talk about
the horrors of what is being done. They pretend like it is not true."
Florencio Caballero, a former Honduran Army interrogator, said
that he had been trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, which the New York Times
confirmed with US and Honduran officials. Much of his account was
confirmed by three American and two Honduran officials, and may be the
fullest given of how army and police units were authorized to organize
death squads that seized, interrogated and killed suspected leftists. He
said that while Argentine and Chilean trainers taught the Honduran Army
kidnapping and elimination techniques, the CIA explicitly forbade the
use of physical torture or assassination.
Caballero described the CIA role as ambiguous. "Caballero said
his superior officers ordered him and other members of army intelligence
units to conceal their participation in death squads from CIA advisers.
He added that he was sent to Houston for six months in 1979 to be
trained by CIA instructors in interrogation techniques. "They prepared
me in interrogation to end the use of physical torture in Honduras –
they taught psychological methods", Mr. Caballero said of his American
training. "So when we had someone important, we hid him from the
Americans, interrogated him ourselves and then gave him to a death squad
to kill."
Torture and rendition
Following the
September 11 attacks, the CIA engaged in the torture of detainees at CIA-run
black sites and sent detainees to be tortured by friendly governments in a manner contravening both US and international law.
Administration officials, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General
John Yoo, as well as prominent legal scholars such as
Alan Dershowitz, publicly defended and justified the use of torture against terrorism suspects.
In May 2018, The
European Court of Human Rights ruled that the countries of Romania and Lithuania
were involved in torture activities perpetrated by the United States
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The two countries were found to have
run "black site" torture rooms and detention facilities
therefore committing grave human rights abuses. In Romania, the secret
facility was located at Northern Bucharest. In Lithuania, the black site
was a guesthouse in the capital city of Vilnius which operated as early
as 2002. In December 2014, the
US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence filed a report which included torture details involving Saudi Arabian nationals Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri suspected of masterminding the
bombing of the US Navy
guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in Yemen and Abu Zubaydah,
an alleged Al Qaeda terrorist. The European tribunal said the "two
high-value prisoners" were "subjected to maltreatment and arbitrary
incarceration at the CIA black site. Hence, the Lithuania and Romanian
governments violated the Eastern Convention of Human Rights' ban on
torture. Authorities in Lithuania also permitted the transport of
Zubaydah to a secret prison in Afghanistan for additional abuse. In a
separate decision, the European court learned Romania was knowledgeable
of Nashiri's torture by the CIA in its own country.
Torture techniques
There
are balancing assertions that CIA personnel attempted to minimize
abuses by foreign governments who practiced torture before any
involvement with CIA.
[citation needed]
There is evidence that CIA has funded academic research, unwitting in
some cases, which was then used to develop harsh interrogation
techniques.
Enhanced interrogation techniques
Torture and harsh imprisonment accusations (as well as documented examples) were not limited to the recent War on Terror.
Yuri Nosenko, a
Soviet KGB
defector, was held in stark conditions of solitary confinement in a
clandestine CIA facility in the continental US from 1966 to 1969.
[29]
Waterboarding
Waterboarding is a method that gives the subject the sensation of
drowning, and may cause permanent damage to the lungs and other parts of
the body. Some individuals being waterboarded, who may have had
preexisting cardiac or respiratory disease, have died under the method.
Finding of War Crimes culpability
In 2007,
Red Cross
investigators concluded in a secret report that the Central
Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level al Qaeda
prisoners constituted torture which could make the Bush administration
officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to the book
""Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War
on American Ideals,"" by
Jane Mayer a
journalist for
The New Yorker.
According to the book, the report of the
International Committee of the Red Cross
found that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major al Qaeda
figure captured by the United States, were "categorically" torture,
which is illegal under both United States law and international
conventions to which the U.S. is a party. A copy of the report was given
to the CIA in 2007. For example, the book states that Abu Zubaydah was
confined in a box "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the
fetal position" and was one of several prisoners to be "slammed against
the walls," according to the Red Cross report.
The CIA has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were
waterboarded, a practice in which water is poured on the nose and mouth
to create the sensation of suffocation and drowning.
Training in torture
On 24 January 1997, two CIA manuals were declassified in response to a
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the
Baltimore Sun in 1994. The first manual, "
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation", dated July 1963, is the source of much of the material in the second manual. The second manual, "
Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983", was used in at least seven U.S. training courses conducted in Latin American countries, including
Honduras,
between 1982 and 1987. Both manuals deal exclusively with interrogation
and have an entire chapter devoted to "coercive techniques."
These manuals recommend arresting suspects early in the morning by
surprise, blindfolding them, and stripping them naked. Interrogation
rooms should be windowless, soundproof, dark and without toilets.
Suspects should be held incommunicado and should be deprived of any kind
of normal routine in eating and sleeping. The manuals describe coercive
techniques to be used "to induce psychological regression in the
subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to
resist."
While the US manuals contained coercive measures, they did not
rise to the level of what is generally defined as torture. Torture,
however, has been culturally a part of authoritarian South American
governments, especially in 1973–1983 (
Dirty War). Argentina had learned such methods from the French in
Operation Charly
and its secret services trained the personnel of other South American
countries. It is not clear to what extent field personnel and leadership
of agencies of the Federal government of the United States (notably the
CIA, Defense and State Departments, AID) were aware of this, condoned
it, or actively assisted it.
In 2007, the chief Argentinian interrogator, Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro, was arrested in the United States.
It is not clear whether he will be deported, held, or extradited. The
other two arrested were Peruvians, Telmo Ricardo Hurtado and Juan Manuel
Rivera Rondon, accused of having participated in the massacre of 69
peasants in an Andean village in 1985, when President
Alan García was trying to suppress the
Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement. Garcia was the President of Peru again from 2006 to 2011.
CIA involvement ranged from no knowledge, to knowledge but no
participation, to knowledge with the suggestion that less brutal
techniques were appropriate, to participation or observation.
Rendition and disappearance
Extraordinary rendition
is the process of clandestinely moving a prisoner from where he was
captured, to an interrogation center in a country not subject to US law
regarding extreme methods of interrogation. Some reports indicate CIA
personnel operated the prison and performed the interrogations, while
others state that while the CIA delivered the prisoner, third-country
intelligence personnel did the actual interrogation. The
Wikipedia Category:Black sites details the list of known or suspected
black sites where CIA prisoners may be detained. Known or suspected aircraft used to transport prisoners are in
Rendition aircraft.
2007 status of ghost detainees
A 50-page
Human Rights Watch
report, "Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention," contains a
detailed description of a secret CIA prison from a Palestinian former
detainee who was released from custody the previous year. Human Rights
Watch has also sent a public letter to U.S. President George W. Bush
requesting information about the fate and whereabouts of the missing
detainees.
"President Bush told us that the last 14 CIA prisoners were sent
to Guantanamo, but there are many other prisoners 'disappeared' by the
CIA whose fate is still unknown," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and
counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "The question is: what
happened to these people and where are they now?"
In early September 2006, 14 detainees were transferred from secret CIA prisons to military custody at
Guantánamo Bay.
In a televised speech on 6 September 2006, President Bush announced
that with those 14 transfers, no prisoners were left in CIA custody.
Police training
Before
1973, Administrations were principally concerned with a Communist
threat of subversion, to be met with host country internal security
forces such as the police. Police and military roles were blurred. US assistance to foreign police began in the 1950s,
and increased in the early 1960s when the Kennedy administration became
concerned about growing communist insurgent activities and established a
public safety program within the
Agency for International Development (AID) to train foreign police.
By 1968 the United States was spending $60 million a year to train
police in 34 countries in areas such as criminal investigation,
patrolling, interrogation and counterinsurgency techniques, riot
control, weapon use, and bomb disposal
The United States also provided weapons, telecommunications,
transportation, and other equipment. In the early 1970s, the Congress
became concerned over the apparent absence of clear policy guidelines
and the use of program funds to support repressive regimes that
committed human rights' abuses. As a result, "the
Congress determined that it was inadvisable for the United States to continue supporting any foreign police organizations". Both the CIA and military intelligence with
Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations may have intelligence collecting relationships with local police.
The
Bureau of Diplomatic Security, under the
Department of State
representatives at any embassy is expected to be aware of all contacts
between US personnel and local law enforcement organizations. The 1973
legislation significantly limited police training of all sorts,
partially in response to human rights concerns.
The majority of this training went to Latin America, but some did go to countries elsewhere in the world, according to Senator
Alan Cranston,
especially those with narcotics or terrorism problems. Cranston cited
six reasons why the Congress, in 1974, banned police training, after
learning of training and equipping "police in
Iran,
Vietnam,
Brazil, and other countries were involved in torture, murder, and the suppression of legitimate political activity":
First, training was provided to
so-called friendly anti-Communist regimes, without regard to whether
they were dictatorships or not.
Second, law enforcement efforts were subordinated to U.S. counterinsurgency goals. As the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) noted, U.S. training included such topics as counterinsurgency
techniques, weapons use, and Communist ideology. This also meant, in
practice, reinforcing the control of recipient countries' militaries
over the police.
Third, and this is clearly borne out in the Langguth book, U.S. trainers were not always the best America had to offer.
Fourth, U.S. intelligence agencies were given an important role in the development and execution of these programs.
Fifth, police training was not placed in the broader context of
administration of justice, with its emphasis on judicial and prison
reform.
And, finally, human rights was rarely a factor in policy considerations at the time.
Cranston went on to say,
This ban remained virtually
ironclad until 1985, when Congress authorized the President to support
`programs to enhance investigative capabilities conducted under judicial
or prosecutorial control' in functioning democracies in the Western
hemisphere.
As a result, the Department of Justice—together with the State
Department and the Agency for International Development—established the
International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program ICITAP.
Operational responsibility was left entirely to ICITAP under the
supervision of officials in the Deputy Attorney General's office, with
policy guidance provided by the Department of State.
In principle, training and assistance to police, as opposed to
military organization, is against US law, but the relevant law allows
Presidential waiver of most provisions. A GAO report
... provides information on (1) the legislative authority
for providing assistance to foreign law enforcement agencies and
personnel, (2) the extent and cost of U.S. activities, and (3) experts'
opinions on the management of these programs.
General Accounting Office investigation
In
1973 and 1974, the Congress enacted legislation forbidding U.S.
agencies from using foreign economic or military assistance funds to
assist foreign police, but it subsequently granted numerous exemptions
to permit assistance in some countries and in various aspects of police
force development, including material and weapons support, force
management, narcotics control, and
counterterrorism tactics. The 1974 prohibition did not apply to the use of other funds by agencies such as the
United States Department of Justice (DOJ) or
United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to train or assist foreign law enforcement personnel.
No government agency is in charge of calculating the cost.
However, the General Accounting Office identified 125 countries that
received U.S. training and assistance for their police forces during
fiscal year 1990 at a cost of at least $117 million.
The prohibition did not apply to Drug Enforcement Administration
DEA and Federal Bureau of Investigation
FBI assistance to combat international narcotics trafficking.
During fiscal year 1990 at a cost of about $117 million, the GAO estimated the major programs were: U.S. programs providing :
Current and former State Department and other government officials,
and academic experts who have been involved in assistance to foreign
police forces, stated that the U.S. government lacks:
a clear policy, or program objectives, on the role of U.S. assistance to
police forces in the new and emerging democracies, a focal point for
coordination and decision-making, and a means for determining whether
individual programs and activities support U.S. policy or contribute to
overall U.S. interests.
They noted that each program is managed individually, and the
only place that coordination is occurring is at the U.S. embassy in the
country.
Scope and methodology on investigation on CIA training assistance
The US
General Accounting Office
obtained information on CIA training and assistance provided to foreign
law enforcement personnel, reviewed the legislative authority for
providing this training and assistance, and identified efforts to
coordinate these activities. They did not review program implementation
in recipient countries. They interviewed officials and obtained records
from AID and the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense, in
Washington, D.C.; reviewed legislation and agency legal opinions on
foreign police assistance; interviewed academic and legal experts on
current U.S. assistance to foreign police; and reviewed literature
published on foreign police assistance and AID's public safety program.
Legislative exemptions to the prohibition on U.S. assistance to foreign police
Congressionally
approved exemptions generally authorize activities that benefit a
specific U.S. goal, such as countering the terrorist threat to U.S.
citizens overseas or combating drug trafficking.
Exemptions were also extended by:
- The International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1981 – for Haiti
- International Security and Development Assistance Authorizations Act
of 1983 – antiterrorism program to allow training in relation to
aviation security, crisis management, document screening techniques,
facility security, maritime security, protection for VIPs, and handling of detector dogs.
- International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 – El Salvador & Honduras
It also expanded the judicial reform program and the police training
exemption to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1988 the
Congress further expanded the judicial reform program to allow police
assistance to promote investigative and forensic skills, develop law
enforcement training curricula, and improve administration and
management of law enforcement organizations. This act specifically
prohibited the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. armed forces
from providing training under this program.
Maritime subjects were exempted from the section 660 prohibition,
as well as the prohibition for any country that has a long-standing
democratic tradition, does not have armed forces, and does not engage in
a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights. The act
permitted such countries to receive any type of police assistance.
- International Narcotics Control Acts
This series of acts approved certain police assistance activities in
Latin America
and the Caribbean for narcotics control purposes. The 1988 act expanded
DOD's role and allowed it to provide training and weapons and
ammunition in fiscal years 1989 and 1990 to foreign police units that
are specifically organized for narcotics enforcement in eligible
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This act also allowed
economic support funds to be provided to Colombian police for the
protection of judges, government officials, and members of the press
against narco-terrorist attacks. The 1989 Act extended DOD's authority
to train police units in
Bolivia,
Colombia, and
Peru
in fiscal year 1990, if the units are only for narcotics enforcement.
It also allowed DOD to provide, in addition to weapons and ammunition,
other defense articles such as helicopters, vehicles, radios, and
personnel gear.
The 1990 act authorized DOD to continue to train and equip police forces
in the
Andean region.
- Urgent Assistance for Democracy in Panama Act of 1990 – after the U.S. invasion of Panama, the Congress significantly enhanced the U.S. role in the development of the new police force in Panama. T.
- The Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for 1991 – Eastern Caribbean exemption
Other exceptions to police assistance prohibition
In
addition to the exemptions previously discussed, there are other
authorities that waive the prohibition on assistance to police forces of
foreign countries. For example, the President may authorize foreign
assistance when `it is important to the security interests of the United
States'. This allows the President to waive any provision of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, including section 660.
U.S. assistance provided to foreign police
Antiterrorism assistance
This aims to improve foreign governments' antiterrorist capabilities to better protect U.S. citizens and interests.
In 1990, the U.S. provided assistance to 49 countries at a cost of
nearly $10 million. Sixty-two percent of the funds were spent in Latin
America, the Caribbean, and Europe, and less than $500,000 was used to
purchase equipment. The Department of State manages the program and
contracts with other U.S. government agencies, state or local police
departments, and private firms to conduct the training. The
Federal Aviation Administration, U.S.
Customs Service, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and the
U.S. Marshals Service are regular trainers. In compliance with legislative requirements, most training takes place in the United States.
International narcotics control
One
of the objectives of the Department of State Bureau of International
Narcotics Matters (INM) international narcotics control training program
is to strengthen host country enforcement and interdiction
capabilities. During fiscal year 1990, INM provided a minimum of $45 million in training and equipment to foreign police, principally in
Mexico,
Jamaica,
Colombia,
Ecuador,
Peru,
Bolivia,
Brazil,
Venezuela,
Pakistan,
Thailand, and
Turkey. These are all narcotics producing and trafficking countries.
INM reimburses other U.S. government agencies, primarily the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), Customs, and Coast Guard, to conduct
the actual training. DEA provides narcotics investigative training,
Customs teaches air, sea and land port search procedures, and
Coast Guard
teaches courses in maritime interdiction. Other agencies may also be
requested to train on a reimbursable basis in areas where they have
specific expertise. For example, DOD provides helicopter training to
police in drug trafficking countries. Training is conducted both
overseas and in the United States and is reviewed and approved by INM.
In addition, DOD used military assistance funds to train and
equip narcotics enforcement police in several drug producing and
trafficking countries. Documents provided by DOD show that in fiscal
year 1990, DOD provided training and equipment with a value of at least
$17 million to Mexico, $1.3 million to Bolivia, $10 million to Colombia,
$1 million to Ecuador, and $1 million to Peru. DOD officials informed
us that training and equipment valued at more than these amounts may
also have been provided. However, documentation was not available at the
Washington, D.C., agency headquarters level that specified the amounts
for law enforcement activities. The equipment provided consisted of UH-1
helicopters and spare parts, ammunition, small arms, riot control
equipment, radios, and miscellaneous personal gear.
Investigative and international police training
In
FY1986, AID transferred funds to DOJ to design, develop, and implement
projects to improve and enhance the investigative capabilities of law
enforcement agencies in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. This
was part of AID's effort to reform judicial systems. Using these funds,
DOJ established the International Criminal Investigative Training
Assistance Program (ICITAP).
Operating under State Department oversight, ICITAP has conducted
criminal justice sector needs assessments in the region and has expanded
its training to include basic police management and police academy
development. In fiscal year 1990, ICITAP received $7 million from the
Department of State for its regional program. It trained more than 1,000
students from the Caribbean, Central and South America and sponsored 7
conferences. Training includes police management, criminal
investigation, crime scene search, and forensic medicine courses. Except
for students sent to training programs in the United States, ICITAP
training takes place overseas.
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also provides limited training for foreign law enforcement officials.
Each year approximately 100 international police officials attend the
11-week college level course at the FBI National Academy that includes
studies on management and forensic sciences. The FBI pays for the
training and subsistence, but does not pay for the students'
transportation. Over the last 10 years, more than 1,100 foreign police
officials from 89 countries have graduated from this course.
Using its own funds, the FBI created two training courses:
- Training for Mexican police to better assist the United States
in its investigations. Mexican officers receive a 3-day course in basic
law enforcement techniques to include crime scene management, collection
and preservation of evidence, hostage negotiations, forensic science,
and investigative techniques. Since 1987, over 400 Mexican border police
have been trained. FBI officials stated that the FBI plans to establish
a training school in Mexico during 1992 at an estimated cost of about
$250,000 annually, excluding salaries.
- The second course developed by the FBI for foreign police was to
provide mid-level management training for police officials from the
Pacific Island nations. The 4-week course includes first-line
supervision, investigative techniques, and hostage negotiations. During
1991, 52 students graduated from the course held in Guam at a cost to the FBI of about $35,000. About 50 students are expected to attend this course during the spring of 1992.
The FBI also provides other training and assistance to foreign police as requested, but the cost is unknown. For example, the
National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime provided training to
Canadian
police. The Criminal Investigative Division conducted a training
seminar for officers from Italy's three national law enforcement
agencies on the use of sensitive investigative techniques such as the
operation of confidential sources, undercover operations, and electronic
surveillance. The FBI also furnishes on-the-job assistance to
governments who request help during particularly difficult or sensitive
investigations.
Counterterrorism and military assistance
DOD
supplies a limited amount of military training and assistance to police
officials. During fiscal years 1986 and 1987, DOD trained and equipped
the El Salvadoran and Honduran police to counter urban terrorist
activities.
This assistance was authorized in response to the murder of U.S.
Marines by terrorists in El Salvador and was managed and delivered by
the U.S. Army Military Police. The assistance consisted of training in
counterterrorism techniques and the supply of police vehicles,
communications, weapons, and other equipment. This effort cost $19.8
million, of which $17 million was provided to El Salvador.
In fiscal year 1990, DOD spent $6.4 million in previously
authorized but unused military assistance funds to purchase needed
equipment and weapons for Panama's newly formed national police force.
Items procured included police vehicles, communications equipment, small
arms, and personal gear. This assistance was a one-time, emergency
program.
DOD has an ongoing military assistance program to support Costa
Rican police. In fiscal year 1990, DOD supplied $431,000 in military
equipment and $232,000 in military training to the Costa Rican Civil
Guard to help them carry out their responsibility to protect the border
regions of the country. DOD provided equipment such as vehicles,
personnel gear, and radios, and military training in areas such as
coastal operations. Additionally, DOD conducted technical training
courses in equipment maintenance and medical skills among others.
DOD, along with the United Kingdom, supports the Eastern Caribbean Regional Security System that was formed after the U.S. intervention in
Grenada.
The Security System is composed of a few permanently assigned military
officers, but largely depends upon island nation police officers who can
be called up for military duty in case of emergency. The United States
equips and trains these personnel to prepare them for such an
eventually. In fiscal year 1990, DOD provided $4.2 million in military
assistance funds that were used to purchase equipment such as jeeps,
small arms, uniforms, and communications gear. DOD also provided
$300,000 for training in special operations, rural patrol, field
survival, and surveillance, as well as technical courses in
communications, navigation, maintenance, and medicine.
Difficulties in determining cost and extent of assistance
Since
some agencies fund assistance out of their own budgets, without
necessarily having a line item for police assistance, the GAO "could not
accurately determine the extent or cost of assistance to foreign
police" In the GAO estimates, "some double counting of students may be
occurring and agencies may not be differentiating between assistance
provided to police and assistance provided to the military." This might
happen when "the agency supplying the training and the agency paying for
the training may both include the trainees in their reporting systems,
such as when ICITAP pays for students attending the FBI academy."
While the DOJ was asked to calculate information on its work with
foreign police, it could not assign a dollar value to items including
"travel expenses, salaries, and expendable items such as course
materials." H.
"Also, GAO could not always determine whether a student was a police
officer or a military member because some agencies do not collect such
data, DOD officials informed us that once they receive permission to
train police in a specific activity they do not provide a further
accounting breakdown. For example, training provided to the Eastern
Caribbean Regional Security System was for law enforcement personnel,
although a few trainees may have belonged to military organizations."
Human experimentation
Project
MKULTRA, or
MK-ULTRA,
was the code name for a CIA mind-control research program that began in
1950, involved primarily with the experimentation of drugs and other
"chemical, biological and radiological" stimuli on both willing and
uninformed subjects.
Rockefeller Commission
In December 1974,
The New York Times
reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities,
including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. The report
prompted investigations by both the U.S. Congress (in the form of the
Church Committee) and a presidential commission (known as the
Rockefeller Commission).
The congressional investigations and the Rockefeller Commission report
revealed that the CIA and the Department of Defense had in fact
conducted experiments to influence and control human behavior through
the use of psychoactive drugs such as
LSD and
mescaline
and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. Experiments
were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent.
MK-ULTRA was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles,
largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of
mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The goal of
the experiments was to study mind-control in order to develop methods of
interrogation and behavior modification and manipulation, as well as to
develop a possible
truth drug.
Outcome
MK-ULTRA
research ultimately proved useless to the CIA and they have abandoned
the program. Because most MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed
in 1973 by order of then CIA Director
Richard Helms,
it is difficult if not impossible to have a complete understanding of
the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by
MK-ULTRA and related CIA programs.
Following the recommendations of the
Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first
Executive Order
on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited
"experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed
consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such
human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the
National Commission. Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and
Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.
