The best thing about secret government research projects is the fun, random codenames. For example – Project Bluebird… Weaponized birds activated by pitching peanut butter-and-seed-coated pinecones into an enemy camp? Not even a little bit. This 1950s CIA program was created to research alternative (generally psychopharmacological) prisoner interrogation techniques, and to create a new breed of puppet spook, whose free will, up to and including his self preservation instinct, was completely suppressed. Most of the experiment was spent administering low dosages of synthetic drugs and chemicals, including heroin, PCP, mescaline, LSD and ether, to unknowing military personnel stationed at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. While the CIA was tangentially interested in the direct effects of the psychotropics and narcotics, their real mission was to study the exploitability of withdrawal-addled soldiers – a goal they accomplished by suddenly ceasing test patients’ regular mickey slips. Of the 7,000 unwitting Project Bluebird participants, 1,000 demonstrated symptoms of epilepsy and clinical mopiness, including suicide attempts and the writing of songs with the word “Blues” in the titles.

(Project Bluebird was later renamed Project Artichoke, a surprisingly apt name that recalls bitter thistles cooked in acrid vinegar water and served up on admittedly delicious pizza, but Satan is the delivery guy and he thinks it’s funny to “forget” to seal the insulated transport bag.)

In 1953, after CIA director Allen Dulles allegedly started bitching and moaning about how many more brain-diddling experiments the government could conduct if they had additional human test subjects, the CIA consolidated all of its varied interrogation research under a singular covert umbrella – the now-infamous MKULTRA. While most folks associate these experiments with LSD research, the MKULTRA project had so many facets and subprograms that its claims of heightened efficiency are dubious. Project QKHILLTOP studied Chinese brainwashing techniques. Subproject 68, operated out of Canada, attempted to chemically erase subjects’ minds (via drug-induced comas) so that scientists could then rewrite the subjects’ personalities based on government specifications. The best, though, both methodologically and fun-codename-wise, was Operation Midnight Climax (yes, that is just what you were looking for, name-seeking high school-aged rock band), in which CIA-compensated hookers lured clients to government safehouses, where the johns underwent LSD dosings and sexual blackmail all in the name of interrogation research.

MKULTRA was shut down in the early 70s, though many believe that contemporary psychological interrogation techniques, such as those employed in Guantanamo Bay, are direct descendents of the CIA’s zany research.

While MKULTRA was chugging along, the U.S. Army, plied as it was on CIA-administered hallucinogens, conducted a wide array of chemical experiments, which didn’t have fun codenames, so whatever. I’ll just rattle them off real quick like. They tested chemical weapon dispersion patterns by blitzing six cities with toxic chemical sprays (I would have called it Project Bandersnatch). They (in cooperation with Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson and Dr. Albert Kligman) injected 70 Holmesburg State Prison inmates with herbicides (I would’ve called this one Project Potpourri Elitism). Additionally, they subjected other Holmesburg prisoners to toxic skin-blistering acids, so that scientists could observe the healing process (me thinks Project Sapphire Dingle).

The important things to get out of all this are a) you’re probably drinking government chemicals right now, but don’t worry… any damage that was going to happen already happened way back in your mom’s uterus when you were sucking whooping cough and DDT through your umbilical cord. It’s probably why coffee smell makes your eyes bleed; b) lots of the experiments detailed in this week’s posts had irrefutably positive results and saved dying babies and whatever so chill out. Christ; c) fun codenames. I’m serious about this. Even it just means re-titling the index cards in your recipe binder or sitting down with your significant other and assigning black ops aliases to your favorite sex positions, you need to apply this to your life.

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