All language subtitles for Forbidden.History.S07E04.MK-Ultra.Revealed.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

[narrator]
Beginning in the 1950's,

the CIA's notorious
mind control program
knew no bounds.

[Dr. Peggy] In some cases,
people died.

But in all cases, their lives
were irreparably damaged.

[narrator]
Classified documents
and modern investigation

tell of terrible atrocities,
carried out in the name
of national security

both at home and abroad.

[woman speaking
foreign language]

[narrator]
Using the brand new drug LSD,

they sought to completely
destroy subject's minds,

only to rebuild them
for their own purpose.

[Lindsay] This is a real
part of history

it goes against the grain
of everything that we think
is acceptable in America.

[narrator]
Could the agency have been

involved in one
of the most notorious
assassinations in history?

What is the truth behind
the CIA's Mind
Control Program?

[theme music playing]

[birds chirping]

[narrator]
The foothills of the Alps

are the birthplace of the
CIA's Mind Control Program.

Just outside Munich, Germany,

lie the remnants
of the Dachau
concentration camp.

It was here that a campaign
of human experimentation

using mind-altering
drugs began.

[Dr. Luke] The Nazis conducted
all sorts of horrible

experiments on concentration
camp prisoners.

They put people in large tubs
of ice water to see how long

it could take them to die
and they put people
in high altitude chambers.

They even put a drug
called mescaline,

which has got
hallucinogenic properties

in people's drinks.

One eye witness from Dachau
said that the mescaline

experiments were conducted
to try and eliminate the will
of the person examined.

[Lynn] At the end
of the second world war,

there was something called
Operation Paperclip,

where a great many
German scientists

were invited over
to The United States.

They shared their knowledge,
their scientific discoveries,
their research

and basically took roots
in The States.

[Dr. Colin] There was a man
named Hubertus Strughold
who did

real atrocity
level of experimentation

that resulted in people dying

during the second world war.
He was brought over to Texas.

A library is named after him.

And he is regarded
as the medical founder
of Aviation Medicine.

[narrator]
The intelligence gained
from Nazi scientists

via Operation Paperclip

led to huge advances
in the fields of rocketry
and aeronautics.

But the CIA also pursued
clandestine research
into mind control.

In 1950, just five years after
the end of World War II,

the cold war
suddenly heated up.

[distant explosion]

The West found itself
at war with communism
in Korea.

[Tony] During the Korean war,

many American soldiers
who were shot down

by communist forces
over Korea,

subsequently made
public confessions

saying that they'd
been engaging in
germ warfare.

That they dropped
anthrax and plague onto
the civilian populations.

And that was something
hotly denied

by the Americans.

And they accused the Koreans

of using Soviet and Chinese
brainwashing methods.

And you can see the anxiety

in the United States
about this whole issue

in Hollywood movies like
Manchurian Candidate

and Invasion
of the Body Snatchers.

[Dr. Colin] So, the official
story of why the CIA got
into mind control

was that it was
defensive and reactive

to brainwashing
by the communist Chinese.

[man] This brainwashing,
the psychological
indoctrination

that had taken place
was so successful

that we had 21 people decide
not to be repatriated.

[Dr. Luke] Some CIA agents
reason that even if
the Soviets hadn't yet

got a mind-controlling drug,

they could get one in future

which meant that America had
to have one first

to better protect
the Americans
and to help win the cold war.

[rocket launching]

[narrator] A number
of projects were started
by the CIA

to explore the use
of drugs in mind control.

The most ambitious of these
became known as MKULTRA.

Of all the drugs tested
by the CIA,

one new synthetic chemical
compound stood out
from all the others.

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,
or LSD.

[Dr. Colin] So, LSD was
discovered by accident,

late '30s, early '40s

by a chemist at
Sandoz Pharmaceuticals
in Switzerland.

His name was Albert Hofmann.

So, he was doing research
on ergot alkaloids

which are rye fungus.
He got one on his fingers

and licked his finger and went
on the first LSD trip.

[Lynn] LSD is the great
psychedelic drug.

It's a psychoactive substance
that basically gives
you hallucinations

which can be heavenly
and can be hellish.

[Lindsay] The CIA decided
to use LSD

because they essentially saw
it as a way to destroy
someone's mind.

[speaking indistinctly]

And the thinking was,

if we can destroy
a person's mind,

we can perhaps build it
back to our liking.

[narrator] And the man
chosen by the CIA

to lead the research into this
seemingly incredible new drug

was Sidney Gottlieb.

[Tony] Sidney Gottlieb was
essentially the CIA's
top chemist.

He was in charge
of the mind control program.

And he's been referred
to since as the CIA's
Poisoner-in-chief.

[Lindsay] So, here we have
an American Jew,
who is using the same

methodology that a Nazi
scientist used

to experiment on prisoners
in Dachau,

with seemingly,
no qualms about it.

[narrator]
In the early 1950s,

the CIA bought the world's
entire supply of LSD

from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals
for $240,000.

The scope of the
mind control program
soon grew exponentially.

[Lindsay] MKULTRA was
a super-secret program.

Very few individuals
knew about it.

And it very quickly
got completely out of hand.

[Dr. Peggy] We'll never know
the full scope

of how many people
were involved
in the MKULTRA program.

We certainly know that there
were volunteers

that knew what they
were getting into.

But there were also people
who were coerced into it.

And unfortunately so many more
that had no clue that they
were being dosed.

[Dr. Luke] But at one stage,
the MKULTRA Team

they decide that in order to
test the true effect of LSD

they have to
do it unwittingly.

And so you have this
remarkable situation where
at the height of the cold war

CIA agents actually put LSD
in their morning coffee cups
and tripping out.

[Dr. Colin] There's many ways
that we know that all of this

science fiction sounding
stuff is true.

The Free of Information Act
liberated all the documents
back in the '70s.

It's fully, fully, fully
documented by the CIA.

And it describes
in great detail

implanting electrodes
in peoples brains,

using hypnosis, using all
kinds of different chemicals.

[narrator] Inevitably,
the cavalier experiments
undertaken

by Sidney Gottlieb
and his underlings
would have dire consequences,

shown most clearly by the
fate of a scientist named
Frank Olson.

Former CIA operative,
Lindsay Moran,

knows all too well
what the agency
is capable of doing

in the interests
of national security.

Frank Olson was
a bioweapon scientist,

and he was actually
doing top-secret work
for the CIA.

[Dr. Luke] On 19th
of November 1953,

Frank Olson is at a work
retreat with his CIA

colleagues in the woods
of Maryland.

And just after dinner
in the evening

the men share a bottle
of Cointreau

which Sidney Gottlieb had
actually spiked with LSD.

Now, Frank Olson
has a really bad trip,

and one of the men who was
with him says that he actually
started to act psychotic.

[narrator]
Olson returned home

and appeared despondent
to his family

telling them that he's made
a terrible mistake.

Reluctantly he agreed
to go to New York City
with his colleagues

to see a psychiatrist.

So, Frank Olson
was given this LSD,

and it kind of understandably
blew his mind.

Both prior to the retreat
and even during
and after of the retreat,

Frank Olson
was expressing misgivings

about the programs
he was involved with,
with the CIA.

And these were super
top-secret programs.

So, it had become evident
that Frank Olson
was a problem.

He was essentially
a dissident.

And he expressed openly
to this small core group
of people

that he didn't want
to do this anymore.

He actually asked to quit.

[narrator]
Frank Olson's grave misgivings

about his involvement in this
secretive CIA program,

would seal his fate.

The CIA's MKULTRA
mind control program

used a variety of drugs
and other methods to alter
people's consciousness.

In 1953, one of the agency's
top scientists had had enough

and wanted to leave
the program.

Shortly after being spiked
with LSD by a colleague,

Frank Olson suffered
a nervous breakdown.

Afterward, he agreed
to travel to New York City

to be examined
by one of the agency's
recommended physicians.

It was outside this hotel
that he would meet
an untimely death.

[Lindsay] Frank Olson,
at 2:30 in the morning
plunged to his death,

right here.

The night manager of the hotel

came out and Frank Olson
was still alive at this point,

and was trying
to mumble a few words

that the night manager
couldn't understand.

And then Frank Olson died.

But the night manager knew
that something was amiss.

If you look at the rooms
in this hotel,

they are actually very small.

There would be no way
that someone could get enough
of a running start

to dive and crash through
the glass window
and fall to his death.

Even if he opened the door
and got a running start
down the hallway.

It's just virtually
impossible, it doesn't
make any sense.

[narrator]
But who was responsible
for Frank Olson's death

and why?

[Dr. Colin] I'm strongly
convinced that Frank Olson
was pushed

out of the hotel room
and it was not a suicide.

And the reason
that was done is

he was threatening
to become a whistle blower.

He was directly involved

in all kinds of chemical
experimentation,
and chemical warfare.

[Lynn] I think the evidence
is such that

one could say, yeah,
Frank Olson was murdered.

[Dr. Luke] CIA agents
proceeded to cover up

the circumstances
of Frank Olson's death
in public.

Although, privately they
admitted that LSD had
triggered his death.

Frank Olson's loving wife
and children had to wait
until 1975

to discover that The CIA
had actually given him LSD.

[narrator]
The CIA has never admitted

to having a hand
in Frank Olson's death.

Yet over 20 years later
in 1975,

the Olson family received
apologies from CIA director
William Colby

and president Ford

as well as $750,000
in compensation.

I can sympathize greatly
with Frank Olson

having worked
for the CIA myself.

The Central
Intelligence Agency

is not now and never
has been a place

appropriate for someone
who has strong moral compass.

It's a place where you have
to be comfortable operating
in the grey.

Frank Olson was deeply
uncomfortable with a lot
of the things

that the CIA and the US
government was doing.

If you have moral qualms,

or misgivings of the work
you are doing

you should probably
keep them to yourselves.

Because nothing good will
come of it for your career

or as we saw in the case
of Frank Olson, for your life.

[narrator] Thousands
of people were knowingly

and unknowingly dosed
with LSD by The CIA
in the 1950's.

This project was so pervasive

it started to have some
unintended consequences.

[Dr. Peggy] Some famous
volunteers to take LSD

were Allen Ginsberg,

Ken Kesey, the author of
" One Flew over the
Cuckoo's Nest"

"Grateful Dead" lyricist,
Robert Hunter.

[Dominic] One of the ultimate
ironies about the
MKULTRA program

is that it was created
by the government for control.

And yet when you look
at the some of the people

who participated
in the program or were
closely impacted by it,

they actually founded
the counter-culture.

MKULTRA succeeded
in creating a revolution.

[narrator]
But this LSD dosing

also had negative consequences
for many of its participants

including psychosis
and suicide.

[man] As you concentrate, time
slows down, you hallucinate,

that is, you dream.

This is called tripping.

[narrator]
A combination of human
experimentation

and little oversight would
lead to very unsavory
side projects.

[Dominic] The CIA really had
very few limits

on who they chose to use
as the subjects
in their trials.

People in prisons,

people in hospitals
and mental asylums,

even men visiting brothels.

[Lindsay] This location here,
81 Bedford Street,

in the west village
in New York City,

was actually home
to one of the CIA's

most secretive, most nefarious
and perhaps

little known missions.

And it was called
"Operation Midnight Climax".

They gave unwitting Americans
doses of LSD,

and it coupled the drugs
with sex.

They used this
as a safe house

and they had the prostitutes
go out,
bring their johns back,

and they would watch
everything that happened,
including the sex.

Operation Midnight Climax

was essentially the brainchild
of two people.

The CIA's main chemist,
Sid Gottlieb,

and also this guy named
George Hunter White,

a completely
out of control character.

[narrator]
Federal Bureau of Narcotics
agent, George Hunter White,

was said to be more interested
in sampling the CIA-supplied
drug stash

than conducting
scientific research.

[Tony] Operation Midnight
Climax has to be one of the
most bizarre episodes

in this whole
mind control saga.

I mean, it's a completely
ridiculous idea,

to use prostitutes to lace
their client's drink with LSD

and have scientists
behind the mirror
gawping at all of this.

I mean, really,
this is voyeurism.

This isn't science.

[narrator]
Starting in the mid 1950's,

Operation Midnight Climax
would run
for nearly a decade

with little to
no credible results.

But soon The MKULTRA project
would spread beyond
America's borders

and become an international
scheme of brainwashing.

Beginning in the 1950s,

the CIA dosed thousands
of people with LSD.

Leading to the death
of at least one of its
own scientists.

But spurred on by
Cold War paranoia,

and claims of communist
brainwashing,

it would continue
to undertake a variety
of unethical experiments

in its quest for mind control.

[Dr. Colin] There was a wide
range of institutions,

who contracted under MKULTRA.

And this includes
leading universities like

Tulane, Harvard, Yale.
Many leading psychiatrists
and psychologists,

all cleared at top secret.

[Dr. Luke] For many of the
MKULTRA experiments,

the CIA chose people
who would be almost powerless

for revenge, so these are
people like prostitutes,

drug addicts and even
mental patients.

And in this there are horrible
echoes of the selective nature

of Nazi terror.

[narrator]
As the '50s wore on,

the CIA enlisted more
and more institutions
into the MKULTRA project,

both in the US and abroad.

One of the most respected
scientists to take part in the
international experiments

was the Scottish-born
Ewen Cameron.

[Dr. Colin] Ewen Cameron was
at McGill university
in Montreal, Canada.

He was part of the team
that went over and interviewed
Nuremberg doctors.

His experiments were
on psychic driving
and depatterning.

[Dominic] From 1957 to 1964,
Cameron works
in the MKULTRA program.

And he was particularly
focused on LSD convulsives.

And administering electro
shock therapy at many times

than the normal
and the safe dosage.

But one thing he's still
really known for is inventing

the psychic driving
technique of torture

and he did that by putting
people into comas

for days, weeks,
and in some cases
even months.

And while the victim
was in the coma,

playing white noise
or repeated sentences at them

over, over and over again.

And in several cases,
this resulted in

complete and permanent
mental breakdown.

[Ross] So, the purpose
of Ewen Cameron's experiments

was to wipe out
a person's memories.

And it's obvious
why the CIA would be
interested in that.

And it's massively unethical,
destructive treatment.

[Selwood]
What's absolutely shocking

is that
this was really happening.

These weren't theories
on a blackboard.

People like Cameron
were taking real people,

often people
who were just checking in
to a medical facility

because they had anxiety
or post-natal depression.

And they were being
put into comas

and having
their minds destroyed.

And this was being done
on the American taxpayer's
dollar.

[Moran] It shouldn't
be a surprise to any of us

that so many
conspiracy theories

swirl around the topic
of mind control,

and particularly
around the CIA,

because this is
a real part of history.

This really did happen.

It's pretty horrifying.

And it really goes
against the grain

of everything that we think
is acceptable in America.

[narrator] But the
US government's testing
on unsuspecting subjects

wasn't confined
to hospitals or labs.

One bold operation
experimented
on a major US city

in plain sight.

In the early '50s,
there was efforts

to test a number of things
on unwitting civilians.

So, there was...

Uh, various kinds
of bacteria were sprayed
in New York and San Francisco.

Radioactive plutonium
was injected into people
without their consent.

All kinds
of different things were done.

[narrator] One such operation
undertaken in 1950

was known
as Operation Sea Spray.

[Selwood] Operation Sea Spray
just defies comprehension.

In 1950, the US Navy
decided to investigate

how the San Francisco
Bay Area would cope

if there was
a biological attack.

And they did that
by releasing
two biological agents.

Unsurprisingly,
not long afterwards,

people began to turn up
with unexplained illnesses.

[narrator]
Ten people were hospitalized

and one person died
from this simulated biological
aerosol attack.

But could the CIA
have carried out
similar experiments

in other parts
of the globe?

Some say
MKULTRA's scope reached
across the Atlantic Ocean

with deadly consequences.

In southern France
lies the town
of Pont-Saint-Esprit.

The sleepy community
seems an unlikely place
for international espionage.

But in 1951,

events here put it
in the global spotlight.

[speaking French]

[Moran] Multiple residents
of this town,

Pont-Saint-Esprit,
in France, became sick.

Mysteriously sick.

Uh, they were
being hospitalized.

Uh, there were rashes.

Uh, people were
becoming unconscious.

And nobody
had any idea why.

And there was
some speculation

that maybe there had been
a poisonous agent

inserted into the bread,
into the bakeries of the town.

Uh, or maybe something
had gotten into
the water supply.

[Schmitt speaking French]

[Selwood]
At first, it was thought
to be simple food poisoning.

But for some
unfortunate people,

those symptoms evolved
into hallucinations
and convulsions.

One man jumped from a window
believing that he was
an aeroplane.

An 11-year-old boy
tried to strangle his mother.

[Schmitt speaking French]

[narrator] What caused
these apocalyptic scenes?

Many have pointed
to these symptoms
being very similar

to those of an LSD trip.

Recent new evidence suggests
that the CIA might have been
responsible.

[narrator] In 1951,
hundreds of people
fell violently ill

in the small French town
of Pont-Saint-Esprit.

Could the CIA
have been involved?

[Selwood]
More than 250 people
were infected, seven died,

and 50 were confined
in lunatic asylums.

The official explanation
why so many people
just started having

these horrific nightmares
and the daymares was bread.

A particular bakery
that had sold bread

to a number of the townspeople
was responsible.

The idea is that this was
a case of ergot poisoning.

[narrator]
Ergot poisoning is caused
by the ingestion of a fungus

that can grow
on spoiled grain.

Throughout French history,
there have been a number
of these deadly outbreaks.

With victims
displaying symptoms

similar to those seen
in 1951.

But evidence from one author
suggests foul play.

[narrator] In 2009,
Hank Albarelli wrote

that the CIA,
possibly with the help
of Frank Olson,

was responsible
for what happened
at Pont-Saint-Esprit.

Hank Albarelli,
who died a few years back,

very thorough, very, you know,
scholarly researcher,

doesn't fly off the handle
with conspiracy theories,

he was strongly convinced
that Frank Olson was murdered,

and that the Pont-Saint-Esprit
was an LSD experiment.

[Moran]
What's really suspicious
about this incident

is that Frank Olson,

who we know was
somehow involved
in the MKULTRA program,

until he fell to his death,

he happened to be
in the vicinity

at the same time
that this was taking place.

So, the very valid
speculation is,

perhaps this was
a CIA-conducted experiment.

In the CIA's
primary mandate

of the 1950s,
which was to fight communism,

they were gonna use
any mechanisms
that they could.

So, why not experiment
on a small French town

instead of
a small American town?

[narrator]
Because he had spoken out
about what really happened

at Pont-Saint-Esprit,

Albarelli claims
that Frank Olson
was murdered by the CIA,

with the help
of George Hunter White,

the mastermind behind
Operation Midnight Climax.

However, Albarelli's
sources within the CIA
remain anonymous,

purportedly
for their own safety.

But without solid proof
of the Agency's involvement,

many remain skeptical.

[Schmitt speaking French]

[Brunache] Could LSD
have been injected

into the bread
at a certain bakery?

Yes, that's possible.

Though I don't think
that many people believe
that was the case.

It was probably
some bad spores,

or the kind of
cleaning products

they use to clean the wheat,

that became used
in the flour.

They suffered from
very bad digestive problems

as a result
of this, this poisoning,

which is not a feature
of LSD at all.

So, there's things
that really don't match
the LSD thing

and really do match
the historical description
of ergot poisoning.

[speaking French]

[narrator] The CIA
has never admitted

to having any involvement
in the terrible events

that occurred
in Pont-Saint-Esprit.

However,
the vast majority of files

relating to MKULTRA
were destroyed

when the project
was dissolved.

[Picknett] President Ford,
in the '70s,

came down hard
on what he discovered

about the CIA using LSD

and other really dodgy,
uh, techniques for, basically,
playing with people's minds.

In some cases,
destroying people's minds.

So, officially, such things
are no longer legal.

[Ross] There's
a whole series of projects

which just
were brought to an end
administratively.

And then,
it was all just shut down

by the Director of the CIA,
Richard Helms.

But that's not believable.

There must have been
subsequent projects

with different names
that we don't know about.

[narrator] Even though
the MKULTRA project

was officially disbanded
in the 1970s,

rumors of ongoing
experiments continued.

One of the epicenters
of these rumors

lies 100 miles east
of Manhattan...

Camp Hero, Montauk.

[Moran] When we think
of the beaches of Long Island,
we think of the Hamptons,

and you would never suspect
that there's actually

a rather creepy
and menacing military base

that's been shrouded
in mystery and conspiracy
for decades.

[McMahon]
Camp Hero is basically
a coastal defense station

built during World War II,

and cunningly disguised
as a fishing village.

And, basically, its purpose
was to protect New York
from seaborne invasion.

There is a theory
that there was a project,

and this involved
the development

of psychological
warfare techniques,

but also
some pretty far-out stuff,

some people believe
included time travel
and teleportation.

[narrator] What secrets
lie beath this abandoned
military base?

[narrator] Officially,
the CIA's mind control program

ended in the 1970s.

Yet, in the 1980s,

rumors of abduction,
torture and experimentation

began to swirl
around Camp Hero,

the site of an abandoned
Air Force base

in Montauk, Long Island.

Although it's never
been proven,

a lot of people think
that there's a connection

between Montauk
and MKULTRA.

That Montauk was a place
where unwitting victims,

potentially children,
were kidnapped
and held hostage,

and experimented on
with LSD.

[narrator]
Locals Brian Minnick
and Danielle Lindsay

have been
investigating these claims
for 25 years.

They have assembled
all available
declassified documents

to build a picture
of the suspected
underground base.

[Brian Minnick]
We have maps of bunkers,

and we have all kinds
of military maps.

This base is huge.

I'm mapping the underground
as best as I can.

And, uh, we keep finding,
to this day, entrances.

When we climbed in
as kids,

we, uh, just rode off from
the lighthouse parking lot
on our bikes.

We found a hole in the wall,
climbed into a bunker.

And halfway
through the hallway,

there was this
hole in the floor

that went across
the whole hallway.

We dropped a brick,
and it was about 40 feet down
with water.

[Lindsay Danielle]
Some were big enough
for a Hummer to fit through.

They go down,
kind of, like, steps.

You have to climb down,
and it goes deeper and deeper.

So we don't know
how big they go out.

[narrator]
Although main entrances
to the underground base

are now impossible
to access,

pieces of the old facility
can be seen from the beach.

[Minnick] We're, basically,
on the eastern side
of Camp Hero,

where it connected
right next to the lighthouse,
actually.

If you can see,
the tower right next
to the lighthouse

is part of the base.

So, there's rumors
that tunnels start running

-along these bluffs
starting right here.
-[Lindsay] Yeah.

And go all the way
to the other side
of the base.

That might just be
a regular rock, but this...

-[Lindsay] Yeah,
look at that cable.
-Wow.

-That is a thick cable.
-Wow. This is old.

This is
a communications cable.

Basically,
that's a base end station
for the coastal artillery.

There was an elaborate
cable system throughout
the whole base.

There was a tunnel
that ran across here.

And since then,
the tunnel fell into the sea
and broke onto the beach.

All the pieces
you can find sometimes.

You know, big pieces
of cement and rebar.

And these wires were
running through the tunnels
for communications.

[narrator]
There are many rumors
about what happened here,

including drug testing
on unwilling subjects,

due to the presence
of a place known
as the LSD room.

The LSD room
was a former World War II,
uh, house.

Base housing.
And, uh, it was
the commander's house.

All four bedrooms
had strange painted designs,

with the trim
and the electric sockets
all taped off.

-Everything perfectly
professionally done.
-[Lindsay] Professional.

[narrator] The strange
designs in this building

are highly reminiscent
of the colors seen during
an LSD trip.

Brian and Danielle's
working theory

is that the use of LSD

is somehow connected
to Camp Hero's huge
radar transmitter.

[Minnick] They picked up
on where MKULTRA left off

with some of
the LSD experiments.

And they did what
the people at Harvard
wished they could do,

is add hallucinogens
with, uh, oscillating
microwave or radio waves.

And they had
the perfect place,
Montauk, to do it.

And that's when that room
might have popped up

with all that
psychedelic designs.

[narrator] Camp Hero's history
as an Air Force base

has also led to a number
of strange sightings.

[Minnick]
Well, we actually have
two UFOs on video.

-Um, one--
-Just when we were here.

One was a while ago,
and one was just recent.

Like, a couple of weeks ago.
And we were filming the radar,

and one UFO comes up
behind it and accelerates,

as the next one
drops down from the sky.

It turns and accelerates
that way.

There's a whole story,

and there's books
about Montauk.

Stories about
all kinds of mind control
experimentation,

advanced physics research
being done there,

torture of children.

None of it proven,
as far as I know.

So, is it impossible? No.

Could it have happened?
Yes.

But, really, there's not
any solid evidence.

[Minnick]
This place has always been
such an important place

to defend the United States,

and then, all of a sudden,
they just left it, you know.

And another thing is,
if they, in fact, had
a deeper underground base,

where there's
more important...

Like, something
like a laboratory.

I couldn't see them
abandoning that

without trying to use it
till this day.

[narrator]
What happened here at Montauk
remains to be seen.

And investigators
like Brian and Danielle

will continue to search
for evidence.

But what is the legacy
of the CIA's
mind control program?

Could it still
be going on today?

[narrator] The CIA
has gone on record,

saying that MKULTRA
and other associated
mind control programs

ended in the 1970s.

But that was definitely
not the end of the road

for its architect,
Sidney Gottlieb.

[Moran] After MKULTRA,
Sidney Gottlieb,

uh, continued to work
for the CIA,

and he was kind of
their main chemist

in devising different ways

that we might assassinate
foreign leaders.

Sidney Gottlieb ended up
becoming involved

in some very curious attempts
to undermine Fidel Castro
in Cuba.

One was to spray
Castro's TV studio
with LSD.

Another one was to coat
his shoes with thallium

so his beard
would fall out.

There was also, very famously,
the idea of a poisoned cigar,

because Castro loved
smoking cigars,

so he'd smoke one
and hopefully die.

[Moran] Some of them
were quite silly,

some of them had the potential
to be very deadly.

Fidel Castro
managed to evade them all.

[narrator]
The CIA may have failed
to undermine Fidel Castro,

but one area
where it might have succeeded

was in the creation
of a real life
Manchurian Candidate assassin.

[Picknett] There are
certainly many anomalies

in the killing
of Bobby Kennedy
by Sirhan Sirhan.

Uh, one of them
is his general demeanor.

He shoots him,
and then the security guards
jump on him,

and it's like
he's just been caught for...

As one of the guards said,
for a traffic violation.

[McMahon] There's no doubt
that like his brother, JFK,

Bobby Kennedy
had plenty of enemies.

And, of course, it spawned
a vast amount of theories

about why
he was assassinated.

And if you watch the footage
of the assassination,

there is something
rather unnerving and surreal
about the whole event,

and what motivated
Sirhan Sirhan

to commit
this terrible deed.

Well, Sirhan Sirhan
has always had amnesia
for the shooting.

And so, there's
circumstantial evidence

that he was controlled
by somebody,

and was
hypnotically controlled,

but it's not really
quite locked down and proven.

So, I'd say
better than 50-50 odds

that he was handled
and controlled by somebody.

[Moran] Through the years,
a lot of speculation

has swirled around

a kind of
wild conspiracy theory

that Sirhan Sirhan
might have been
a CIA agent.

Knowing what we know now
about MKULTRA

and how far-reaching it was,

and how there was, truly,
no lack of accountability
at the CIA,

and they were
getting into bed

with, uh, mobsters,
and drug dealers,
and assassins,

and all and sundry criminals,

it certainly
wouldn't surprise me

if there was
some tangential connection
between Sirhan Sirhan

and the MKULTRA program.

[narrator]
In 2021, Sirhan Sirhan
was granted parole.

But this was overturned
by California Governor
Gavin Newsom,

giving the reason
of Sirhan's refusal

to accept responsibility
for the murder.

With so many questions
still unanswered
about the CIA's involvement,

some wonder, could the CIA's
mind control program
still be active?

[Ross]
When somebody asks me,

"Do you think
this is ongoing?"

My basic answer is,
"I don't know for a fact."

But what I do know
for a fact is Guantanamo Bay
and Abu Gharib.

Those are organized
interrogation programs,

using a lot of
pretty destructive,
unethical tactics,

like, electric shock
to the person,

uh, sleep deprivation,
food deprivation,

uh, sexual humiliation.

All of these are elements
of enhanced interrogations

that trace
probably back 2,000 years,

but certainly
back to MKULTRA.

[Selwood]
Militaries and governments
are always researching,

always trying to find
the next edge

in combat and intelligence,
to give them the advantage.

But these days,
the research is
much more likely

to be into
automation and AI,

than it is to be pumping
soldiers or spies
full of drugs.

[Moran] With all
of the experimentation
of the MKULTRA program,

the CIA really didn't succeed
in any of its aims.

So, one could say that
the program was almost
entirely for naught.

Although, you potentially
could credit the CIA,

uh, with being the harbinger
of the, the age of free love.

And LSD
really found its foothold.

[Ross] There is
a massive amount

that, obviously,
we don't know.

The person in charge
of MKULTRA, Sidney Gottlieb,

who I talked to
briefly on the phone once,

he told me
an interesting thing,
which was,

there was another unit
within the CIA,
in parallel to his,

conducting
mind control research,

which has not been identified
or declassified at all.

[narrator] We may never know
if MKULTRA was responsible

for the poisonings
at Pont-Saint-Esprit,

or the deaths of Frank Olson
and Robert F. Kennedy.

But until more files
are declassified

and the CIA
is either exonerated
or admits responsibility,

rumors of Agency involvement
in some of the darkest moments

of the 20th century
will continue.