Hypnotizing Americans

The War for the Private and Public Mind

With both women in a trance, induced into a deep sleep, Morse Allen was left to wonder while watching the proceedings with great anticipation: would one of them pick up the gun and shoot it? Was this the solution he was looking for?

Allen was excited at the prospect of what hypnotism could bring to his assigned task of employing mind control in covert action abroad for the CIA. In July 1951, an employee wrote to him about a lie detector operator who offered a “course of instruction in hypnotism.” The course began on July 2, with the instructor relaying his sexual experiences, explaining how “he had constantly used hypnotism as a means of inducing young girls to engage in sexual intercourse with him.” He claimed to have “forced” an orchestra performer into having sex with him “while under the influence of hypnotism.” He accomplished this by first putting her “into a hypnotic trance and then suggested to her that he was her husband and that she desired sexual intercourse with him.” While walking home, he bragged, he would occasionally use hypnosis to get girls to turn around, approach him, and suggest that they have sex. As a result, the CIA employee reported, “he spent approximately five nights a week away from home engaging in sexual intercourse.”

The instructor claimed to have worked for a “top secret intelligence organization” during World War II, hypnotizing people to memorize detailed information such that it would be forgotten in their conscious mind until later. At a different location, they could then be re-hypnotized and suddenly remember what they had been told. He also claimed he could instill clairvoyance in a subject, who when placed in a trance could “read a closed book a considerable distance away.” Referring to this as “thought projection,” he stated that only one in twenty people he hypnotized had “sufficient clairvoyance” to be able to accomplish this task.

While participating in the course, the CIA student got to try what he learned directly in the real world. The instructor introduced the student to a man waiting for an appointment; it was explained that the student was an “expert hypnotist” who wanted to conduct an experiment. The man was hypnotized and given the suggestion that he would feel no pain and be made deaf for two minutes after waking up. After the man awoke, he was unable to hear anything; to “test for fakery” the student went behind the man, yelled and clapped his hands next to his ear with no “apparent effect upon the man’s hearing.” Skepticism of how the teacher could have rigged this experiment never entered the analysis; Allen was convinced this was a solution worth trying in the search for an ability to control agents without their knowledge.

The CIA’s experimentation led by Morse Allen of the Security Research Staff (SRS) began immediately that July, under a project known under the codename Bluebird. As Sidney Gottlieb, the later head of Project MKULTRA, recalled: “The origins of CIA interest in hypnosis began before I arrived at the Agency with [Morse] Allen and others in SRS who recognized the practice as a possible means for eliciting information.” The project was pitched to CIA Director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter by the Agency’s head of the Office of Security, Sheffield Edwards, in April 1950, bypassing the normal governance process of going to the Projects Review Committee due to “the extreme sensitivity of this project and its covert nature.” The original project objective was stated as involving “the polygraph, drugs, and hypnotism to attain the greatest results in interrogation techniques...This interest stems from the recent spy trials in Hungary and other satellite countries.” Another memorandum entitled “Special Research, Bluebird,” however, revealed that the Agency’s interest went beyond merely interrogation: “Can we create by post-[hypnotic] control an action contrary to an individual’s basic moral principles?…Could we seize a subject and in the space of an hour or two by post-[hypnotic] control have him crash an airplane, wreck a train, etc.? (Short, immediate activity).”

Once Allen’s volunteers from the Agency had been counseled as to the “secret nature of the work,” they were tested for their ability to be hypnotized, including attempts at inducing sleep. Early on, a woman was hypnotized to believe that person sitting in front of her was not there: “when asked who sat in the chair occupied by [the other person] she remarked, ‘There is no one sitting there.’” After being taken out of her trance, the experimenters were pleased to report that she “had complete amnesia including the time that she appeared to be awake.” This effort was undertaken under Bluebird’s research question #7: “Can we guarantee total amnesia under any and all conditions?”

Flirting Exercise

By the the two-month mark, the experiments became more strange in terms of what they tested. One of the key questions the CIA was looking to resolve as part of their mind control efforts was to get individuals to perform acts against their will, or, as later described in Agency documents, “against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.”

The experimenters began their work in this realm of activity by hypnotizing a man and woman to role play a scenario: “she was at a party, that she was having a wonderful time, an orchestra was playing on a phonograph or radio. Everybody was drinking and in general behaving as they were at a highly successful party.” While under a deep sleep, the woman was instructed to “see a man sitting across from her whom she would not know and whom she would want to flirt with and on whose lap she would want to sit.” The woman followed the orders, expressing in her trance while deeply asleep how she was enjoying the music and began talking to the man. After attempting to get him to dance with her, “she sat on the edge of his chair and then on his lap for a few minutes.” The man pretended that he was wanted on the telephone and the woman returned to her seat on the sofa, expressing her complete amnesia regarding her actions. Given the risqué nature of the scenario involving work colleagues, the testers felt the need to explain why it was done and that the participants would have quit if they were truly disturbed:

If it can be shown in a series of tests that our subjects will do things that they normally would not do in their everyday activities, it seems logical that individuals elsewhere can be also controlled thusly...these tests are to be very simple, amusing situations, very carefully controlled, and pointed to humorous activity rather than of a scandalous or immoral nature since the individuals with whom we are working are very high type and if anything was carried too far would undoubtedly terminate their work with Bluebird. However, it is believed that even simple tests such as set forth above are clearly indicative of what may be done under “field” conditions.

The operator wanted to try the same experiment with another woman, but they had run out of time: “it was decided to wait until next time.” Overall, the tests were viewed to be “successful,” potentially pointing to significant phenomena “for future Bluebird operations.” According to the available notes, the lap test would not be attempted again for another three years.

The experiments over the ensuing months continued to test their ability to place young women under hypnosis; some they saw as success stories in terms of achieving manipulation in a sleep-induced state and they suspected that some of the other women were “play-acting.” Scenarios that were achievable included making a subject “unable to move her foot or withdraw her hands from her coat pockets,” whereas attempting to trick a woman into a believing a cold room was warm did not work: she “still mentioned that she was not warm enough.” The testers also instructed employees under hypnotism to not reveal safe combinations and under a trance they refused to do so.

With the CIA project now renamed Artichoke, Allen interviewed another hypnotist on February 25, 1952 and asked if the reverse was possible through hypnotism: to get individuals to reveal information they wanted to remain a secret. “Definitely, yes,” he replied. “Many of the medical cases I work on are involved in obtaining personal, intimate information and through hypnotism, I have been quite successful in obtaining this. If an individual refuses to co-operate with hypnosis, the doctors with whom I work use drugs, always sodium amytal.” Asked if individuals could be controlled by hypnosis, he responded: “This is a very difficult subject. Post-hypnotics will last twenty years and will be very strong if re-enforced from time to time. However, if direct control is wanted, and particularly without re-enforcement, perhaps twelve hours would be the most you could expect and even then a possibility exists that the person under hypnosis might suddenly be awakened by some external stimulus.”

The interviewee acknowledged that hypnotizing someone without their knowledge was a challenge, adding that “to attempt to attack an individual who did not want to be hypnotized alone would be almost an impossible task. In that type of case, I would use sodium amytal and/or sodium pentothal.” Asked about any special techniques he knew, he claimed to use 18 different approaches “ranging from fear to anxiety, to deception,” noting additionally that there was a “a peculiar and somewhat dangerous technique involving pressure on the carotid artery. The technique of using pressure on this artery is largely a matter of timing. Pressure in the right place cuts off the flow of blood to the brain, apparently causing a rapid coma-like condition—during this condition, hypnotic control can sometimes be obtained. The technique is not easy to learn. I have tried it only a few times but it has been successful.” Asked if people could be hypnotized to commit acts “they would not do otherwise,” he responded that “by the proper type of conditioning and a very intelligence and understanding approach using psychology, individuals could be taught to do anything including murder, suicide, etc.” Allen himself would soon put this last theory to the test.

Invited to the Bedroom

One of the more bizarre experiments occurred that year on November 18, when Allen invited two female subjects to his apartment. Beginning at the office, the two women were placed in a “deep trance state” and then were instructed to “go to the ladies room, put on their hats and coats, sign out and get into his automobile.” The two were driven by another operator, while Allen followed them in another car. After all four entered Allen’s apartment, they engaged in a prearranged conversation while the women remained in a trance state. Allen then instructed them to go into his bedroom and lay down on his twin beds. The women fell asleep in the beds and were awakened by the other operator who noted their reactions: “startled.” One had previously visited Allen’s apartment before and had a vague idea of where she was. The other “had no knowledge of where she was or how she arrived there.” Allen wrote in a summary for the Agency’s files that the experiment was deemed “successful” and the point of the exercise was to “see how ‘normal’ individuals in a deep sleep state can appear while acting in a routine manner or in a state of normal social conduct.” Why this experiment needed to be carried out in his own apartment and involve two women sleeping in his beds, he never explained.

An Artichoke Problem

The “sleep induction and hypnosis experimentation” continued sporadically over the ensuing months, with sometimes multiple sessions a month, sometimes none at all, according to the documentary record. Not all of the participants were hypnotizable as some of their early “successes”: notes from a September 23, 1953 session indicated that after two “girls” were given the “falling back” test, while one in a prone position “achieved a deeper trance and anesthesia was successfully induced in her leg,” the other fought the induction process. She confessed that she “feared she would be trapped into hypnosis” if she let her guard down.

The Artichoke team had other problems to consider beyond the considerations of hypnosis and how applicable it may have been their operations. A memo written on January 22, 1954 revealed their thinking about the topic of assassination and what they were trying to accomplish. The report described a team visit to a foreign country early in the month in which they discussed getting a person from that locale “to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE.” They described their ideal target agent: a person 35 years of age, well-educated, proficient and English and well-established socially and politically in the target government of interest. This agent would be induced through a “trigger mechanism” to commit an assassination against a prominent politician of the target country, “or if necessary, against an American official.” The team never explained why the CIA was planning to kill American officials abroad; a later CIA reviewer simply added an asterisk by hand, writing that this idea was “simulated only.”

The team’s target agent happened to work in the government of the foreign country, but their access to him was limited. They would likely have only one social meeting as an opportunity to influence his behavior. He was cited as a “heavy drinker,” allowing for the opportunity for the Artichoke team to drug him “through the medium of an alcoholic cocktail at a social party.” Once he carried out the assassination attempt, the team guessed that the most likely outcome would be his capture by the local government, thereby ensuring that he was adequately “disposed of.” The team applied the Artichoke approach to the agent and he was “induced to perform the act of attempted assassination at some later date.” They did not stay to monitor if the act was actually carried out, writing: “Whether the proposed act of attempted assassination was carried out or not by SUBJECT was of no great significance in relation to the overall project.”

The team recorded that even though they believed their hypothetical ability to influence their target agent to commit an assassination under the given conditions was “probably” not a feasible endeavor, under the “‘crash conditions’ and appropriate authority from Headquarters, the ARTICHOKE Team would undertake the problem.” Two additional problems were noted: one being security, that they had given insufficient consideration that the activity could leak and “jeopardize the entire future application”; the other was the team’s “unanimous opinion” that unless they were given access to the detailed operational plan, “it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to carry out the assigned mission.” The same individual who wrote that their idea of assassinating a U.S. official was only a simulation added a handwritten footnote that the detailed assassination plan “would be made available when and if required.”

Picking Up the Gun

As a next step, Allen shifted the hypnosis experimentation into the assassination realm. The following month, on February 10, he brought a total of five subjects for the test. The operator performing the hypnosis was surprised, expecting that only three would arrive, forcing him to change his plans from “experiments in color blindness, blindness and intoxication” to one at the heart of the Artichoke problem.

The operator pointed a finger at two of the women: “you will sleep,” he stated, activating a post-hypnotic suggestion implanted the night before. The women fell immediately into “a deep hypnotic state with no further suggestion.” One had previously expressed a fear of firearms in general and the operator pushed her boundaries in this regard: he instructed her to “pick up a pistol nearby” and shoot it at the person next to her, saying that her “rage would be so great that she would not hesitate to ‘kill’ [the nearby person] for failing to awaken.” She did as she was told: she picked up an “unloaded pneumatic pistol,” fired the gun at the person asleep next to her, and after accomplishing her task she fell back asleep. Both were later awakened and expressed “complete amnesia” about the events that just transpired.

The woman who had fired the gun was offered the pistol by the operator, but in her awakened state she refused to take it. Allen was undoubtedly impressed when “she expressed absolute denial that the foregoing sequence had happened.” Not only had they carried out a simulated assassination with the assassin being unwitting, the act was conducted against her will. The operator spent the remainder of the session demonstrating his control over one of the women, including his ability to put her to sleep upon command despite her resistance. After being put under hypnosis and instructed that she would fall asleep each time a steel ball hit the floor, she awoke to explain how she needed to finish her work for the evening. “She arose to adjust her hair before the mirror,” the account read, and at that moment the operator dropped a steel ball in his hand to the floor and “she promptly slumped back into the chair and back into hypnosis.” With more training, the operator concluded, she would “continue to improve” as a subject.

An Unpleasant History

In the final months of the recorded tests, Allen captured some bizarre behavior under hypnosis. One involved a woman instructed to awaken two others who were asleep. In a sleep state, the woman yelled their names and when they would not respond, “in exasperation” she dragged one out of her chair and let her fall to the floor to try to wake her up, but she remained asleep. The tester was surprised given that the woman was “very unemotional” and “had not been aggressive in any of her work.” This aspect appeared to partially address the original Bluebird research question #8: “Can we ‘alter’ a person’s personality? How long will it hold?” Amnesia for the event was not achieved as the woman clearly remembered pulling the other subject from the chair, and despite another person falling on top of her remained “asleep during the entire activity.”

The experimenters also worked with the proposition of stealing documents and keeping them hidden: they sent one woman to personally search another woman asleep on a sofa. The hypnotized woman conducted a methodical search, moving her into several positions and even looking under the clothes, finding the document in the woman’s girdle. The searcher left her colleague in a disheveled state and “made no attempt to rearrange the clothing.” The searched woman did not remember being inspected, noticing only that her blouse was now unpinned. The searcher only had “the vaguest recollection for some of the events” and did not believe that she had stored the document in her stocking “until she left the room and discovered it there herself.”

Allen theorized through the witness testimony that if the document had been the size of a postage stamp, the woman “would have stopped at nothing to have discovered it, including possibly disrobing her.” This time, however, the two male testers did not personally watch the proceedings to avoid embarrassing the participants. They made a further attempt to have a woman sit in another person’s lap, but this time the effort failed: despite implanting “an uncontrolled desire to sit in” the person’s lap, she “did not sit in [their] lap and made every effort to avoid so doing. Details are not known why she did not follow through on the suggestion.”

Other experiments involved testing the anesthetic possibilities of hypnosis by “pricking the hands of the various subjects with a knife,” which was successful. Another test related to mental telepathy, getting subjects to make drawings and asking others replicate them without looking. In this case, the results were inconclusive: a subject drew lines similar to a “British flag,” while another subject “was observed making lines slanting in a similar direction and varying in other ways.” In one particular experiment, the operators were disturbed enough themselves to stop their inquiries into what they were discovering. After asking a woman to draw a house under hypnosis and regress to the age of 10, a tester gave the opinion that her drawing pointed to “some unpleasant even in the past life of her family and felt we should discuss it no further.”

The End of the Dream

In 1977, when the CIA conducted an inventory search of the Office of Security’s archival material, the Agency found 18 cartons of documents related to Bluebird and Artichoke that had not been provided to the 1975-1976 Congressional investigations into the CIA. Some additional drug-related information was discovered, including how the OSS, the CIA’s predecessor, had conducted an unwitting test of drugs on a “notorious New York gangster.” Regarding hypnotism, the Agency found “files, films, and tapes” that indicated “a strong interest but little, if any, operational use of this medium.” The CIA summarized how Morse Allen’s dream had fell short of his aspirations for the method:

A great deal of reference material was studied and analyzed, various authorities were consulted, and several Agency employees were trained in the art of hypnotism. A program of hypnosis testing and experimentation was conducted between 1951 and 1954 using volunteer Agency employees as subjects. An interim report in 1954 regarding these tests states that the tests were neither of sufficient complexity nor conducted under the hazardous conditions necessary to warrant “extravagant” claims for operational use; however, there were strong indications of the potential of hypnotism as an offensive and defensive aid. There are also indications of research and experimentation into disguised induction of hypnosis through mechanical means, e.g., polygraph, audiometer, EKG, etc.

With the Bluebird and Artichoke projects behind him, Allen turned his attention to influencing the American mind.