MKUltra resurfaces as a new HBO series

CIA mind control experiments that exposed willing and more often unwilling people to mind-altering chemicals are the focus of an HBO series now in early production by David Chase. Chase is best known as the creator of the Emmy-winning mob drama The Sopranos. His latest drama series is based on John Lisle’s new book Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKUltra.

John Lisle’s book goes into greater detail than previous MKUltra exposés. The reader gets to know the arch-chemist Sidney Gottlieb (aka The Black Sorcerer), who headed MKUltra while working at Langley, Virginia. On January 30, 1973, Gottlieb burned all his own files related to the secret drug dosing program. He was driven out of the CIA during the Nixon Watergate scandal. Gottlieb’s testimony before the Church and Pike Committees survived, and it is this testimony, along with seven displaced boxes of rediscovered MKUltra files, that is vividly revealed by Lisle.

One of the major mysteries surrounding MKUltra involves the circumstances of the death of CIA operative Frank Olson. Many have speculated that Olson was tossed out of a 13th-story hotel window by fellow CIA colleagues who feared he would panic and reveal details of the LSD experiments and MKUltra to the public. The fall was recounted by the Statler Hotel’s doorman, who yelled:

“We got a jumper, we got a jumper!” He later described Olson’s fall as “like the guy was diving, his hands out in front of him, but then his body twisted and he was coming down feet first, his arms grabbing at the air above him.” (p. 49)

Olson wasn’t the only fatality involving MKUltra. Gottlieb was a real-life super spy who could outshine any James Bond villain with scores of super-deadly brainwashing tricks all commissioned in the name of national security. He attempted to use psychedelic drugs to create an American-controlled Manchurian Candidate before the Communists could create one of their own. One witness to the Gottlieb family’s very private lifestyle was a young family friend of Peter Gottlieb named Elizabeth:

One day that summer, we were out at the house swimming. The parents had gone to the store to buy food for dinner, and Peter goes, kind of conspiratorially, “Come here. I want to show you something.” He takes me into his father’s den, his library, and says, “Turn around.” He did something—he didn’t want me to see what he did—and the wall of books opened up. Behind it was all this stuff. Weapons—I couldn’t tell which kind, but guns. There was other stuff back there. It was like a secret compartment. I couldn’t tell which kind, but guns. There was other stuff back there. It was like a secret compartment. I asked him, “What is that for?” He closed it back up quickly and said, “You know, my father has a price on his head.” I said, “Why, is he a criminal?” He said, “No, he works for the CIA.” Then he said, “You know, my dad has killed people. He made toothpaste to kill someone.” Later on he told me, “Don’t tell anyone that you were in there, and don’t ever tell anyone you know that my father kills people.” (p. 154).

If the Sopranos episodes are any indication of what to expect with the MKUltra production, David Chase’s new series should be just as outstanding and win just as many awards while providing a fascinating glimpse inside the CIA’s covert drug wars.