WEBVTT - Brainwash 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.160 What do you wear when a mobster comes over for 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.880 a drink? Do you expect to be padded down to 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.160 make sure you're not wearing a wire? What if he 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.919 already knows you're a cop? Do you dress up? Maybe 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.160 a tweed suit and tie. It's hard to figure out 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.760 what mafia casual is, especially when you're a narcotics officer. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.600 So we don't know what George White was wearing when 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.760 the mobster came to his door. That part wasn't in 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:36.440 the file. But when Sydney got leave, the CIA's chief 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:40.080 chemist and head of the MK Ultra drug experimentation program 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.440 pulled the confidential report on George White. This is what 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:53.240 it said about that May meeting. First, White took a 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.600 cigarette pack and began knocking out a few of the 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.960 smokes onto a table nearby. He had a vial of 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.720 liquid th hc acetate. Holding up the vial to the light, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.360 White plunged a syringe into the top, piercing the rubber 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:13.039 seal and drawing the solution through the needle. Then he 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.760 pierced the syringe into the cigarette, then another. He did 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:22.080 this patiently, one at a time, making sure the solution 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:28.080 drenched the tobacco. Every time he finished with a cigarette, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.360 he put it in a shot glass vertically so any 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.320 excess liquid would drain out, And once the smokes were dry, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.040 he returned them to the pack like they've never been touched. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.520 Then he put a brand new cellophane wrapper on the 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.080 box like it was unopened, like it had just tumbled 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.960 out of a dime store vending machine. White kept his 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.600 own untampered cigarettes separate. It's probably safe to say he 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.760 smoked one or two before he heard the knock at 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:02.880 the door. In walks August del Gracio, a k A. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.400 Little Aggie. He strolls in like he's been there before. 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.359 That's because he has. Even though White and Little Aggie 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.880 are on opposing sides of the law, White the celebrated 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.639 narco agent and Aggie a made man, the two have 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:23.760 grown close. A few years prior, White could have arrested 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:26.560 Little Aggie in an opium bust, but he let him go. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.960 It's a weird way to bond. But then again, White 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:37.440 needed sources, and Little Aggie was connected Lucky Luciano Meyer Lansky. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.440 He knew them all. The two started hanging out, going 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:47.240 to each other's homes. They shared drinks, played chess, so 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.920 when Little Aggie came over that afternoon, it was business 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.120 as usual. They knocked a few back and made small talk. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.280 I want to smoke, Aggie here, you're a guest. Save 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.480 them for later, Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll take a smoke. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.840 Listen to you. I got a guy poked outside waiting 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.000 for me, So I got maybe twenty minutes. Sure. Little 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:24.320 Aggie takes a drag. He feels relaxed, more relaxed than 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.320 he's ever been, and he starts to talk and talk 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.000 about infourmants he'd been forced to kill, about men he 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.520 could have murdered if White needed them to disappear, about 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.880 a top secret plan to use the notorious mobster Lucky 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.160 Luciano to help with the Allied occupation of Italy during 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:50.040 the war. Geo anything I'm telling you, I know, Loggy. 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.640 Do you repeat anything at all? It would get me killed. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:04:00.480 You understand that I'm dead. It's a doornail, I know, Boggy. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.960 You don't have to worry. You can trust me. The 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.520 fuck the funk you say that for? Say? What dead? 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.440 Is it doing nail? Why is it doingaille gotta be dead? 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.680 I don't know the one one on the cigarette. Shit, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.479 I got it, I gotta go. I got a guy outside. 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:26.440 I only got twenty minutes. You've been here over two hours, Aggie. Well, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:35.400 now it really gotta fucking go. This meeting, which George 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.760 White dutifully recorded in his diaries, was the beginning of 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:44.040 something big. Nine years later, this all appears in the 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.520 report that Sydney Gottlieb is looking through, and at that 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.159 moment got Leave decides there's no better man to handle 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.640 his top secret search for a truth drug than George White. 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.640 If George White could manipulate a mobster sworn to protect 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.080 the secrets of the Familia with an old fashioned wartime 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.200 truth serum, what could he do with something potent? What 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.960 secrets could he uncover with the full support of the 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.560 CIA and a supply of L s D. The world 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:49.880 was about to find out from my Heart radio, this 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:54.479 is Operation Midnight Climax. And I heard original podcast. I'm 0:05:54.560 --> 0:06:01.920 Noel Brown and this is chapter two Brainwash, Part one, 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.839 Criminal Friends. What was George White up to before he 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.120 landed on the CIA's radar. It's all on the report 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:15.320 on Sydney Gottlieb's desk in ninety three, George White was 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.560 working for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. He's 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.240 been traveling the globe on all sorts of crazy missions, 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.800 from arming insurgents in Africa to finding out where, when, 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.680 and how drug smugglers are getting their illicit goods into 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.600 the US. Then one day White gets a call from 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.560 the head of the OSS, Bill Donovan. He's known as 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:42.120 wild Bill, and Wild Bill has a special request. Scientists 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.640 at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington have developed an intriguing 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.240 drug from one of the primary compounds in marijuana liquid THHC. 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.279 But this isn't just a joint in liquid form. It's 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.000 highly concentrated, the way dish soap promises to clean fifty 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.560 plates with one drop. A few puffs and you're gone. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.920 In the preliminary tests, subjects given the extracts start talking freely, 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.760 divulging all sorts of information. Wild Bill has a hunch 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.120 this could be the fabled truth drug the government has 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.120 been looking for, the one the Nazis are already rumored 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.200 to have in their possession, and his scientists have already 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.600 experimented with how to deliver it. They've tried it as 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.520 a vapor, they've burned it over charcoal. Finally, they settled 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:34.280 on a solution that could be injected into cigarettes. The 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:39.040 method is so smart and deceptively easy, after all, what's 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:44.239 more natural than offering someone a smoke? But a wild 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.800 Bill needs to test this out, and he needs the 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.840 kind of subjects the OSS wouldn't care about, the kind 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.119 of people the os s could overlook, so he calls 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:59.840 George White, someone with criminal friends. Wild Bill wants to 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.080 know just how talkative someone with real secrets might get, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.760 what sort of things a mobster might reveal while knowing 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.160 the cost. After all, in the mafia's line of work, 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:15.520 loose tongues get removed with hedge clippers, So he tells 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.960 White to expect a package. Then he tells him how 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:29.520 to use it, and White agrees, but before he starts 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:35.160 calling up criminals, he tries it out on himself. White 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.439 sits alone in his apartment and starts smoking a soaked cigarette, 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:46.839 and almost immediately he understands. George White smokes himself unconscious, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.040 and when he comes to, he scribbles a note in 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:59.760 his diary knocked out pretty good stuff. Brother. Once White 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.080 says on a dose that seems to relax him without 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.920 causing him to become catatonic. White Nose just who to call. 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.360 A former drug dealer, Little Aggie was reformed. According to White, 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.840 Aggie owned a number of bridle shops in New York, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.600 run by his brother and sisters. He ran a clean business, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:24.960 allegedly supposedly the Italian mobster at a soft spot for me. 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.760 He took to dropping by my apartment evenings to play chess, 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.800 at which he was terrible. They talked, Little Aggie laughed. 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.240 Under the influence, he was a different man. Sure he 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.839 spoke about heroin and informants and hits and Luciano. He'd 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.080 spoken of these things before, but never in such detail, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.440 never so freely. One part of him seemed to be 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.160 aware he was talking too much, but the other part 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.959 didn't care. So you popped him, Well, yeah, and I 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:58.960 could pop anyone else you need to meet tube Gio. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.200 White had two observations coming out of his conversation with 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.880 Little Aggie. For one, it seemed like the marijuana had 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.559 been a rousing success. Little Aggie forgot he had a 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.679 driver waiting outside. Seemed to forget he belonged to a 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.760 very tribal organization that would kill him for saying the 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.920 things he told his friend Geo. But White also had 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.160 a second thought, which he shared with wild Bill. Was 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.079 the OSS really looking to get into bed with Lucky Luciano? 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:35.320 The least trustworthy ally possible at the time. Luciano was 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.679 in prison serving a thirty to fifty year sentence for 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:45.080 running the largest organized prostitution ring in America. Springing him 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.400 and then asking for his help offended White in a 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.440 fundamental way. Sure, he was friends with Little Aggie, but 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.280 that was to gather information. He didn't trust a mafia 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.960 man to lead the US to victory in World War Two, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.400 so he old Wild Bill to stay away from criminal gangs. 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.360 He said, Little Aggie had told him some concerning things. 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.719 I don't think the OSS is gonna let Luciana out 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.199 of President Aggie. There's some very powerful people who can 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.800 make that happen to you. You ain't see. Wild Bill agreed, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.480 and the OSS never employed him, but Luciana would come 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:27.080 back to haunt White later in a major way. For 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:31.079 the moment, White had more pressing issues. While Bill wanted 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.080 him to take his show on the road literally, the 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.600 OSS tasked White with continuing his reefer madness experiment in 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:43.760 new and creative ways. He was sent to interrogate thirty 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.079 American soldiers in Atlanta who were suspected of being closet communists. 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.840 White was armed with intelligence folders on each one so 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.520 we could ask leading questions. One by one, they puffed 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.680 on White's magic cigarettes, oblivious to what was inside of them. 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.280 One by one, their defiance dissolved in a puff of smoke. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.840 Nearly all of them gave White information he didn't have 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.240 before he walked into the room. The effects seemed to 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.280 materialize within fifteen minutes and lasted for thirty to ninety minutes, 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.240 just enough of a window of time to climb inside 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:29.920 their minds and grab what he could. Part two, The 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:38.320 Manhattan Project. This was the end result of two billion 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.520 dollars spent on research and production of years of feverish labor. 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.480 Johanna's atomic power ahead of the enemy. The energy that 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.160 generates the heat of the Sun and operates the solar 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:59.640 system comes under the will of human kind. White visited 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.199 the side dentists working on the atomic bomb. The OSS 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.600 wanted to know if the lab boys would discuss classified 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.240 information under the influence. Let's just pause for a second 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:15.080 to acknowledge how bonkers this is someone somewhere signed off 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.160 on an experiment to give an untested solution of liquid 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.120 marijuana to the men responsible for designing the most dangerous 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.439 weapon in mankind? Do you really want people who can 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.880 summon the end of the world getting high in the 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.600 middle of their work day. These weren't necessarily cigarettes either. 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.080 White injected their food and drink with it, sprayed it 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.840 on tissue paper they used on their faces. Then he 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.080 and another operative tried to get information. After all, it's 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:50.079 something the enemy might do. Thankfully, no one talked. Considering 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.360 the government's track record for disposing of national security threats, 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.480 it was for the best. Throughout his travels, White was 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.959 partnered with a Harvard law grad to it from OSS. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.480 His name is lost to redacted documents, but we do 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.600 know the man would later confess that no one at 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.760 the OSS would ever accept a cigarette from him again. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.920 While Bill sent the pair across the South cigarettes at 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:22.760 the ready, and their styles didn't exactly mesh. George Hunter 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.400 White was reckless. He parked his car illegally wherever he wanted. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.080 He used his gun as a prop to scare waiters. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.080 One night at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, White 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.040 pulled out his twenty two automatic and shot his initials 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:43.240 into the ceiling of their hotel room. G h W. 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.320 It took him several clips. It was like he wanted 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.840 to sign his work, like he was making history and 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.480 wanted people to know. George White, rejected by the FBI, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.600 had finally arrived. But this was just the start of 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:07.840 his depraved adventures, an audition for the real work that 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.440 would begin. When Sydney Gottlieb first pulled out his file 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:36.880 in September, the American public was introduced to a new term, brainwashing. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.280 It was coined by a journalist named Edward Hunter, who 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.480 was writing about the dangers of the Communist Party for 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:47.120 the Miami Daily News. Communists in China, Hunter road, we're 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.840 using terrifying technique to turn their people into mindless, obedient robots. 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.200 Edward Hunter's story scared a few people, but largely passed 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:02.080 without notice. Then reports started circulating of Americans who were 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.960 captured during the Korean War confessing to biological warfare. A 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.800 colonel who had been shot down over Korea admitted to 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:16.760 war crimes, so did other soldiers. These captured Americans insisted 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.920 they had dropped anthrax in North Korea over civilians. Whether 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.560 that's what really happened is still debated seventy years later. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.040 They implored the U. S Government to end the war 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:33.280 and signed confessions testifying to their heinous deeds. Some refused 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:39.920 to be repatriated. Others stood up in support of communism. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:44.240 Would an American soldier really denounce his own country? For 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.760 those in the highest levels of government, there was a 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.160 simple explanation. Some kind of potion must have warped the 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:57.800 prisoners minds, Something must have happened suddenly. Edward Hunter's warning 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:09.760 didn't seem so hysterical. Brainwashing was a convenient explanation, and 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.920 it wasn't exactly Edward Hunter's idea. Hunter was a CIA propagandist, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.760 a journalist willing and able to spread the agency's message 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.560 when the call came, and the call did come, to 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.800 communicate to Americans that the Russians and Chinese were on 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.240 the forefront of what came to be known as brain warfare. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.120 According to Dominic street Field's book Brainwash, the CIA captured 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.880 two Russian agents in Ninette. They were carrying small plastic 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:47.960 cylinders filled with liquid. Under questioning, the Russians said these 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.920 powerful dlug We'll tell them human into zombie. They will 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.359 do whatever they are told. The really scary part, no 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:01.119 CIA chemists could identify it. Now, imagine you're the c 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.160 i A. You've just been told the enemy has mastered 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.000 the art of chemical mind control. And it wasn't just 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:12.040 a report. Soldiers were actually defecting. Weird drugs were turning 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.919 up everywhere. Remember this was the era of Joe McCarthy, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:23.280 the Second Red Scare. Paranoia gripped the agency. Every single 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.040 drug available had to be rounded up and evaluated for 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.159 possible use against the United States. The effects needed to 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:37.240 be known. This was priority one. Alan Dullas, the CIA's director, 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.080 believed this operation could determine the very survival of the 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.240 United States. In fact, Dallas gave a speech in ninety 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.600 three that touched on the topic. In the past few years, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.719 we have become accustomed to hearing much about the battle 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.880 from men's minds. We might call it brain warfare. Its 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.399 aim is to condition the mind so it no longer 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:03.000 reacts on a three wheel or rational basis, but responds 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.959 to impulses implanted from outside. If we are to counter 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.119 this kind of warfare, we must understand the technique. The 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:19.880 Soviet Is adopting to control men's minds. For the CIA, 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:25.080 brain warfare was no hypothetical scenario. Dulles appointed Gotlieb was 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.960 the chief of the Chemical division of the Technical Services Staff, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.160 and Gottlieb promptly got to work. His staff of CIA 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.840 and Army chemical scientists raced to evaluate drugs for their 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.360 mind controlling potential. The drugs were a new challenge for Gotlieb. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.720 In the early days, CIA chemists worked on the sort 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.439 of thing you'd find in a kid's spy movie, stink 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:51.240 bombs and exploding cookie dough. But under Gottlieb, the work evolved. 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.439 Operating from an Army base in Fort Dietrich, Maryland, his 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.480 team brewed countless recipes of sabotage from by chilling hum 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:05.280 toxins too paralyzing agents. They formulated deadly liquids from shellfish 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.080 toxins and crocodile bile, and the herbal stuff things like 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.879 mescaline and marijuana were combed for their truth seeking properties. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.320 No question was too outrageous. Could they dissolve a concrete 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.160 wall with a chemical? Could they induce amnesia? The projects 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.480 had code names like Bluebird because they wanted tight lipped 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:36.960 in formants to sing. Gottli was unassuming in appearance, tall, thin, 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.480 with a stutter, but he was ruthless about his work. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:45.720 An absolute monster, and he ushered in a horrifying chapter 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:51.760 of American history. In ninety one, when four Japanese men 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.280 were suspected of working for the Soviet Union, Gottlieb escorted 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.000 a group of scientists to Tokyo. The team injected the 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.760 men with stimm lens and depressants until they confessed. They 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:10.080 were tortured without a trial, without anything resembling justice. All 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:18.560 four men were executed and dumped into Tokyo Bay. Gottlieb 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.240 repeated the protocol with twenty five prisoners of war in 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:28.040 North Korea. They refused to renounce Communism, they too, were executed. 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:33.080 Gottlieb would even board a plane headed for the Congo 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.480 with an unknown toxin meant to assist in the CIA 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:43.119 sanctioned assassination of the country's prime minister. Gottlieb wound up 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.840 throwing the substance in the river because too much time 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.480 had passed and it had grown unstable, but the prime 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.399 minister would live just another few weeks before he was 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:57.160 reported dead. The CIA denied having anything to do with it. 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:05.560 Dallas had officers pursuing non chemical means to hypnosis, electroshock therapy, 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.920 brain surgery, and as they worked, the CIA inched closer 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.680 to their goal of brainwashing someone, convincing someone to act 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:19.920 in a manner contrary to their nature. A CIA psychiatrist, 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.360 for example, successfully induced an office secretary into a state 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.920 of sleep. Then he told another secretary to wake her up, 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:29.720 and if she couldn't, she should pick up the gun 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:35.159 and shoot. The secretary couldn't wake up her colleague, so 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:40.320 she picked up the gun, took aim, and fired. Of course, 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:46.480 it wasn't loaded. While homicidal secretaries seemed like a promising start, 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:51.200 this kind of experimentation could only go so far. After all, 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.280 these were government employees who had agreed to be subjects. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:59.320 On some level, they were complicit, They wanted to follow orders. 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:04.280 It would be another matter entirely to coerce the enemy 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.440 into confessing, and no external force seemed capable of doing that. 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.800 It had to be something chemical, something to make the 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:24.600 brain pliable, malleable, something that left it impressionable. Remember, Americans 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:27.840 were coming home denouncing domestic ideals, turning their backs on 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.560 the country, and the CIA wasn't just in the business 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:34.119 of identifying intelligence threats. They were, in many ways a 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:38.640 defense agency. The enemy was waging a war of neurons now, 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.119 and Alan Dallas believed the fate of the United States 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:48.359 of America rested on it. So that's where Sidney Gottlieb 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.360 found himself surrounded by psychologists looking to hack into brains 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:57.360 through brute force. The stakes impossibly high. He kept looking 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:00.560 at files, hoping to find a trace of something promising. 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.880 He rewound back to the Office of Strategic Services and 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:08.160 to George White, who had already been tasked years prior 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:12.119 with finding a truth drug and if his experience with 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:15.520 August del Gracio as any indication White had found it, 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.520 the very same drug White had spent his days arresting 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.439 people for was the same thing he was dosing people 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.080 with across the country, you know, for the sake of 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:45.240 democracy and a little later for fun. Part three, Meeting 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:50.080 of the Minds. Gottlieb's interest in White came at a 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:53.560 crucial time for the narcotics agent. There was an opening 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.840 for the district supervisor's job in New York. White was 0:24:56.920 --> 0:24:59.639 so certain he'd be selected for duty that he started 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:02.640 moving into the vacant office, hanging pictures up on the wall. 0:25:03.240 --> 0:25:07.120 He stayed there for weeks until word came in his supervisor, 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:12.440 Harry Anslinger, couldn't give him the job. New York Governor 0:25:12.480 --> 0:25:16.720 Thomas Dewey despised White. White had stated the mafia was 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:19.719 trying to bribe the government to get Lucky Luciano out 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:22.359 of prison in order to help the Allied invasion of Italy, 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.520 which fairly directly implicated Dewey. Dewey was the one who 0:25:26.520 --> 0:25:31.600 commuted Luciano's sentence. White had never forgotten what Little Loggie 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:34.760 had said about Luciano, and he wanted to nail someone 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:41.080 for it. Unfortunately, it was a bad political move. Fingering 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:43.920 Dewey put White in the crosshairs of some powerful people. 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:47.919 This won't be the last time Dewey causes problems for White, 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:52.320 and once again George White was denied an opportunity he 0:25:52.440 --> 0:25:57.479 felt he deserved. But Sydney got leave. He had no 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:03.400 such concerns. To Gottlieb, George White was everything he could 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:07.640 ever ask, a perfect soldier for brain warfare. Not only 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:11.119 did White have extensive narcotics experience, he was a trained 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:17.680 killer beyond little Loggie, White maintained a network of underworld associates. 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:21.160 He was a conduit to a world Gottlieb wanted to exploit. 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:27.040 Who better to experiment on than society's unwashed masses the pimps, prostitutes, 0:26:27.359 --> 0:26:32.920 drug dealers, users, and mafia cronies, and George White had 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.600 access to all of them. Even if the subjects found 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:39.159 out and wanted to complain, they'd never go to the police. 0:26:39.760 --> 0:26:46.679 Silence was their universal trait. Gottlieb knew he needed White 0:26:47.320 --> 0:26:49.800 someone to take his lab theories and test them on 0:26:49.840 --> 0:26:55.200 the streets. Of course, one federal agency doesn't simply plunder 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:57.919 the employees of another federal agency without going through the 0:26:57.960 --> 0:27:01.840 proper channels, So Gottlieb called it's boss Harry Anslinger to 0:27:01.880 --> 0:27:06.720 get his blessing. Anslinger, who was busy telling the press 0:27:06.760 --> 0:27:09.159 heroin was now the number one drug scourge in the country, 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:12.000 didn't have a problem with it. White had long been 0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:15.200 among his favorite agents. He told Gotlieb if he wanted 0:27:15.200 --> 0:27:18.240 White part time, that was fine with him. He didn't 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:23.040 realize the CIA would soon become White's all consuming obsession. 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:29.560 In early nineteen fifty two, Gottlieb finally met White in Washington. 0:27:30.520 --> 0:27:33.040 It was the real life equivalent of the Emperor recruiting 0:27:33.119 --> 0:27:36.600 Darth Vader. The CIA chemist would later describe the man 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:40.840 he shook hands with as gruff and loudish, but who 0:27:40.840 --> 0:27:45.320 could turn urbane to a point of eloquence. Gottli was 0:27:45.400 --> 0:27:51.080 experiencing the dichotomy of White for himself. Rather than sit 0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:54.000 in a conference room, White suggested another way of getting 0:27:54.040 --> 0:27:57.119 to know one another. He invited Gottlieb to accompany him 0:27:57.160 --> 0:28:00.080 to Boston, where he was working on an investigation concerning 0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:02.840 a small business owner and millionaire who claimed to be 0:28:02.880 --> 0:28:06.280 working real estate but was clearly profiting from a heroin 0:28:06.400 --> 0:28:09.919 ring connected to a New York crime family. On the 0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:13.440 way there, they talked business. I've read about the marijuana 0:28:13.480 --> 0:28:17.560 experiments you did for the U. S S. It's fascinating stuff. 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:20.640 I'm knocked my own ass out. You know, do you 0:28:20.840 --> 0:28:24.280 think it's less than ideal for our purposes? You need 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:27.800 to tell me what your purposes are, so Gottlieb did. 0:28:28.560 --> 0:28:31.439 He explained the agency's suspicions that the Soviets had a 0:28:31.480 --> 0:28:33.879 truth drug in their arsenal and that the country was 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:40.040 under substantial communist threat. Some subversive action was needed, actions 0:28:40.080 --> 0:28:43.920 sanctioned by CIA director Alan Dulles, who had the blessing 0:28:43.920 --> 0:28:47.920 of President Dwight Eisenhower. The specifics were up to Gottlieb. 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:52.040 There are a lot of drugs with potential, but we 0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:54.560 need to be careful of blowback. I mean, if someone 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:57.400 catches on you drug them, then maybe they'd go to 0:28:57.440 --> 0:29:04.200 the police. A criminal might not no, and you know 0:29:04.240 --> 0:29:12.080 what else, I am the police. Gotlieb and White got along. 0:29:12.880 --> 0:29:16.280 White told Gottlieb about his frustrations over being passed up 0:29:16.280 --> 0:29:19.080 for government jobs in the past, the feeling he wasn't 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:23.960 good enough, and Gottlieb understood the man with a club 0:29:24.000 --> 0:29:27.440 foot had been rejected for military service. He knew the 0:29:27.520 --> 0:29:33.240 sting of rejection. Gottlieb walked away from his encounters with 0:29:33.240 --> 0:29:36.840 White feeling very good about his potential as a CIA consultant, 0:29:37.760 --> 0:29:40.560 and that title wasn't plucked from thin air either. If 0:29:40.560 --> 0:29:43.040 Gotlieb could actually follow through on its plan to drug 0:29:43.120 --> 0:29:46.880 random civilians, he needed a certain distance from White. He 0:29:46.960 --> 0:29:50.080 needed to be able to say, George White doesn't work 0:29:50.120 --> 0:29:54.520 for the CIA, just in case things went wrong. And 0:29:54.560 --> 0:29:57.880 this isn't exactly a spoiler but things were about to 0:29:57.920 --> 0:30:05.360 go very, very wrong. A company man, Gottlieb, reached out 0:30:05.400 --> 0:30:08.360 to his supervisors to get the necessary clearances to officially 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:12.840 enlist White. But the intelligence world is murky. Gotlie didn't 0:30:12.880 --> 0:30:17.160 know that another CIA officer, James Angleton, had already contacted 0:30:17.160 --> 0:30:21.160