Mind control

CIA launches mind control program, April 13, 1953

On this day in 1953, Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, ordered the agency to develop mind-controlling drugs to be deployed against members of the Soviet bloc. The ultrasecret program was purportedly launched in response to Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War.

The CIA sought to use similar methods on its own captives. At the height of the Cold War, the project also attempted to produce an effective truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies and to explore other possibilities of mind control. Moreover, the agency wanted to be able to manipulate foreign leaders using such techniques. It launched, for example, several failed schemes to drug Fidel Castro.