This is one of those moments when I started to feel shock and horror shifting towards disbelief, and then remembered that this is the CIA and of course they did stuff like that because who would stop them?
One of those little examples of how journalism really is one of the last bulwarks between the country we want to think we are and the country we very easily could be.
The Church committee[1] in '75 did some good work to reign in the worst of the intelligence communities work. Most of that has been undone by now though.
The CIA's work on LSD wasn't the worst thing going on and - surprisingly to me - the intelligence agencies were far from the worst. Eg, there was a Sloan-Kettering Institute researcher who injected live cancer cells into unwitting humans through out the 1950s and 60s[2]. Or in 1952 a Detroit Hospital administered radioactive iodine to premature babies, and fed it via a tube to healthy non-premature babies. Or the doctor who administered 100 or more rads of radiation after forging consent forms.
This is one of those moments when I started to feel shock and horror shifting towards disbelief, and then remembered that this is the CIA and of course they did stuff like that because who would stop them?
One of those little examples of how journalism really is one of the last bulwarks between the country we want to think we are and the country we very easily could be.