Much attention over the past several months has focused upon the intrusive National Security Surveillance State. One draconian dimension which has not received sufficient attention is this State’s experiments with, and implementation of, mind control upon the American people. As background introduction to this crucial topic, I would suggest LRC readers become familiar once again with one of the most outstanding investigative articles ever to appear on this website: Michael E. Kreca’s “How the Government Created the ‘Drug Problem’ in the USA.” It directly impacts on the two excellent documentaries presented below:

This program, Mind Control: America’s Secret War, is part of the popular series from the History Channel that investigates some of civilization’s unsolved mysteries and controversies. This episode goes deep inside the American government’s intelligence operations to investigate its secret studies and experiments in mind control. Much information was gleaned from documents accessed under the Freedom of Information Act. An interview with John Marks, author of In Search of the Manchurian Candidate, adds many facts that he believes the government does not want its citizens to know. In 1983 I discussed these crucial matters with Marks. This was a conversation that left me very shaken and distrustful of the covert aspects of our sociopolitical culture. Towards the end of the documentary the subject of nonlethal weapons is broached. Here is an update.

This classic A&E Investigative Reports documentary with Bill Kurtis, Bad Trip To Edgewood, analyzes how between 1955 and 1975, the U.S. Army used 7,000 enlisted soldiers as human guinea pigs for experiments involving a wide array of biological and chemical warfare agents. These tests were conducted jointly by the U.S. Army Intelligence Board and the Chemical Warfare Laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal’s research facility in Maryland. Approximately 3,500 of these soldiers were given doses of powerful mind-altering psychochemicals, including LSD, PCP, and BZ. These “volunteer” test subjects were not told which drugs they were given, and were not fully informed of the extreme physical and psychological effects these drugs would have on them.

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