Community | January 14, 2009 | 19 comments

US veterans sue CIA for alleged drug and mind control experiments

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/12/cia-veterans-drug-test-mind-control

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ninthstate
It's about time...
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It was 1968, and Frank Rochelle was 20 years old and fresh out of Army boot camp when he saw notices posted around his base in Virginia asking for volunteers to test uniforms and equipment.

That might be a good break after the harsh weeks of boot camp, he thought, and signed up.

Instead of equipment testing, though, the Onslow county, North Carolina, native found himself in a bizarre, CIA-funded drug testing and mind-control programme, according to a lawsuit that he and five other veterans and Vietnam Veterans of America filed last week. The suit was filed in federal court in San Francisco against the US department of defence and the CIA.

The plaintiffs seek to force the government to contact all the subjects of the experiments and give them proper healthcare.

The experiments have been the subject of congressional hearings, and in 2003 the US department of veterans affairs released a pamphlet that said nearly 7,000 soldiers had been involved and more than 250 chemicals used on them, including hallucinogens such as LSD and PCP as well as biological and chemical agents.

Lasting from 1950 to 1975, the experiments took place at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. According to the lawsuit, some of the volunteers were even implanted with electrical devices in an effort to control their behaviour.

Rochelle, 60, who has come back to live in Onslow county, said in an interview that there were about two dozen volunteers when he was taken to Edgewood. Once there, they were asked to volunteer a second time, for drug testing. They were told that the experiments were harmless and that their health would be carefully monitored, not just during the tests but afterward, too.

The doctors running the experiments, though, couldn't have known the drugs were safe, because safety was one of the things they were trying to find out, Rochelle said.

"We volunteered, yes, but we were not fully aware of the dangers," he said. "None of us knew the kind of drugs they gave us, or the after-effects they'd have."

Rochelle said he was given just one breath of a chemical in aerosol form that kept him drugged for two and a half days, struggling with visions. He said he saw animals coming out of the walls and his freckles moving like bugs under his skin. At one point, he tried to cut the freckles out with a razor.

Not all the men in his group tested drugs. But he said even those who just tested equipment were mistreated.

"Their idea of testing a gas mask was to give you a faulty one and put you in a gas chamber," he said. "It was just diabolical."

The tests lasted about two months. Later, Rochelle was sent to Vietnam.

Now he's rated 60% disabled by the veterans affairs department, he said, and has struggled to keep his civilian job working on US marine bases. He has breathing problems, and his short-term memory is so bad that he once left his son at a gas station.

Among other problems, he said, his doctor diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and said it came from the drug experiment. He has trouble sleeping and still sometimes has visions from the drug, he said.

A big goal of the lawsuit, Rochelle said, is to get the word out to the thousands of soldiers who were tested. Some may have forgotten all about the tests and not know that's why they now have health problems.
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Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing in 1987 on a similar case:

" 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential ... to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators."
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19 comments // US veterans sue CIA for alleged drug and mind control experiments

  • omshaantih
  • SonicGT
  • moarzors
  • lyndzstyles
  • lukeskywalker
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  

    • Unfortunately, this has been going on forever. The common cold virus was introduced into the tunnels in Pittsburgh, PA back in the 50's or 60's to see how long it took for reported cases to show up. Not life threatening to most people but this was with out voluntary participation. Alcohol & cigarettes were given to WWII soldiers; cannibis/drugs to Vietnam GI's. to help to deal with the daily shock of war and/or for other reasons?! Don't volunteer for any kind of drug trials, unless you are propared to face side effectss and long term ramifacations. Protect yourself.
      We need to shout this out loudly so the young and old alike here it. This has to stop.

    • 3 years ago
  • idealist
    • 0
      idealist  

    • the cia will have a bunch of fancy lawyers and the victims will have a copy of conspiricy theory staring mel gibson....... thats all they will need. hopefully

    • 3 years ago
  • escarondito
    • 0
      escarondito  

    • This is old news for me but important for people who don't do research on our corrupt government. Just search project blue beam or project Mk-ultra

    • 3 years ago
  • keithponder
    • 0
      keithponder  
    • escarondito:

      Ditto. It is old news for some of us, but too many, it's new, and to most, they still have never heard of this, and some still just refuse to believe it, so we have to keep talking about it.

    • 3 years ago
  • ninthstate
  • keithponder
    • 0
      keithponder  

    • It's starting not to sound so much like a conspiracy anymore.Sirhan B Sirhan, Mark David Chapman,John David Hinckley and so many others were all Manchurian candidates.

      BTW, Hinckley's attorney, Craig Gregory, who was also Bill Clinton's attorney during the impeachment hearings, has now been named White House counsel by Barack Obama.

      Strange twist, indeed !

    • 3 years ago
  • pedrozero
  • RaceBannon
  • euroforex
    • 0
      euroforex  

    • In the 1980s I had a friend who had enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam war and volunteered for these experiements. He was subjected to massive doses of LSD combined with amphetamines while strapped in a chair. He was medically discharged after suffering extreme debiliating cognitive side effects. Later, he filed a lawsuit against the US government (O'Connors opinion) the only volunteer to try and get compensation, becoming known as the $6 million dollar man (the amount he was suing for). The US government - Pentagon - Army et al; denied his case to be heard in court because it cited that he was property of the US government; so he can't sue. If the US government allows this case to go through, it will open up a floodgate of lawsuits by former military personnel who were subjected to deceptive experiments - such as the soliders who were injected with syphillus in WWII - Black men who never knew what they were given.

    • 3 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Gotta love those guys & the amazing work they've done over the years for it takes a lot of hard work & dedication to compete with the likes of Stalin, Mao & Pol Pot.

      Ask this guy...

      THE SECRET WARS OF THE CIA:
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
      by John Stockwell

      John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. He spent 13 years in the agency. He gives a short history of CIA covert operations. He is a very compelling speaker and the highest level CIA officer to testify to the Congress about his actions. He estimates that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions, and this was in the late 1980's.

      Also...

      Making Heads Roll
      excerpted from

      "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Intervention Since World War II."

      by William Blum
      http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/MakingHeadsRoll.html

      The CIA’s Greatest Hits
      http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/CIA_GreatestHits.html

      Timeline of CIA Atrocities
      http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_time.htm

      "A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get." - Ian Williams Goddard

    • 3 years ago
  • futuregen
    • 0
      futuregen  

    • You are about to find out. Ray LaHood of Peoria ILL is about to become head of DOT. All sewer, water pipes will be bugged covered up by roads. Police state mentality will be employed everywhere/ bridges, interstates as well as the road in front of your house - all equipped with the latest technology to bug and control the masses. LaHood is a good friend of the Bush/Cheney administration. Obama's pick of him will only escalate the ripping up of our constitution and the elimination of all of our civil liberties.

    • 3 years ago
  • Jiji_Kero
  • cantspascua
    • 0
      cantspascua  

    • Jacob's Ladder - Anybody remember that movie except this time it takes place in Edgewood , Maryland. And why is everybody bringing up important matters after the fact? No wonder the last congressional hearing on experiments on our own military personnel fell on deaf ears. But it is good that people are finding the courage to speak on this subject.

    • 3 years ago
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