Today's guest is University of Texas historian John Lisle, author of the chilling and brilliantly researched Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA.
Despite official attempts to destroy records of the CIA's LSD-fueled search for mind control in the 1950s and '60s, the truth has been dribbling out, especially in recent books and documentaries such as Steven Kinzer's Poisoner in Chief and Errol Morris' Wormwood.
Lisle's work draws on previously unknown depositions and documents to deliver the most definitive—and disturbing—account yet. He discusses the twisted logic of Cold War secrecy, the bizarre figures behind and victims of America's darkest experiments, and what MKUltra reveals about the dangers of unchecked power in a democracy.
And this might be the most important thing: He and Nick Gillespie talk about why conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of transparency—and how to preserve skepticism without surrendering to paranoia.
0:00—Intro
1:32—What is MKUltra?
3:42—Brainwashing origins in the Korean War
6:50—Who is Sidney Gottlieb?
10:43—The CIA's startup culture
20:37—Who is Ewen Cameron?
24:32—Jolly West and implanting memories
28:24—MKUltra gets shut down
31:08—How MKUltra documents came to light
39:38—Main lessons from MKUltra
46:57—Politicization of intelligence agencies
51:03—Conspiracy thinking and the legacy of MKUltra
58:31—COVID-19 and the collapse of righteous authority
The Soho Forum Debate: Jacob Hacker vs. David Goldhill, July 16
This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.
Nick Gillespie: John Lisle, thanks for talking to Reason.
John Lisle: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
All right, the book is Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra. I suspect that our more conspiracy-minded and history-minded listeners and watchers know what MKUltra is, but summarize what MKUltra was.
Yes, thanks for having me again. MKUltra was this program by the CIA, starting in the 1950s. And the goal of MKUltra was to determine whether methods of mind control are possible. The CIA wanted to know, for instance, whether you could create a truth drug—could you give someone you're interrogating a drug that can make them spill the truth, make them tell the truth no matter what? Could you slip something in someone's drink and make them behave in a certain way—either make them seem erratic or potentially control their behaviors and beliefs?
That's kind of the overarching goal of MKUltra. They did that through various means. Some of the reasons why the people who were in charge of it were interested in this kind of thing—someone like Sidney Gottlieb, who led MKUltra, this chemist in the CIA—he was worried about the potential for communist countries possessing these kinds of methods.
For instance, Ivan Pavlov, the fam
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