Mockingbird and MKULTRA

[Ron Bulman]

7 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Cord Meyer, apparently, retired from the CIA in 1977, around the time of the Church Committee investigations.

According to Wikipedia, he became a syndicated columnist, and died of lymphoma in 2001.

I notice that the Wiki chapter on Meyer mentions the E. Howard Hunt death bed "confession" fingering LBJ, Cord Meyer, William Harvey, and David Morales in the JFK assassination plot, FWIW.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_Meyer

 

Well if Allen Dulles trusted him to take over after Wurlitzer Wisner . . . what can one say?

This might be a good spot to quote something I re found yesterday about them and Helms (the only Director to serve time!).  From Poisoner In Chief by Stephen Kizner Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control: Kinzer, Stephen: 9781250140432: Amazon.com: Books   Page 40.  

"Allen Dulles immediately focused on Bluebird.  He had been on the job for only a few weeks when he sent a revealing memo to two of the senior officers he had assigned to direct it, Frank Wisner and Richard Helms.  "In our conversation of 9 February 1951," Dulles wrote, "I outlined to you the possibilities of augmenting the usual interrogation methods by the use of drugs, hypnosis, shock, etc. . . .  Other memos from this period . . . Another directs researchers to investigate ways that a person "can be made to commit acts useful to us under post-hypnotic suggestion" along with ways to "condition our own people so they will not be subject to post hypnotic suggestion."  A third asks:  "Can a person under hypnosis be forced to commit murder?" 

They and later Gottlieb had 17 years to experiment before Sirhan, a dozen before Ruby.      

[W. Niederhut]

10 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Well if Allen Dulles trusted him to take over after Wurlitzer Wisner . . . what can one say?

This might be a good spot to quote something I re found yesterday about them and Helms (the only Director to serve time!).  From Poisoner In Chief by Stephen Kizner Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control: Kinzer, Stephen: 9781250140432: Amazon.com: Books   Page 40.  

"Allen Dulles immediately focused on Bluebird.  He had been on the job for only a few weeks when he sent a revealing memo to two of the senior officers he had assigned to direct it, Frank Wisner and Richard Helms.  "In our conversation of 9 February 1951," Dulles wrote, "I outlined to you the possibilities of augmenting the usual interrogation methods by the use of drugs, hypnosis, shock, etc. . . .  Other memos from this period . . . Another directs researchers to investigate ways that a person "can be made to commit acts useful to us under post-hypnotic suggestion" along with ways to "condition our own people so they will not be subject to post hypnotic suggestion."  A third asks:  "Can a person under hypnosis be forced to commit murder?" 

They and later Gottlieb had 17 years to experiment before Sirhan, a dozen before Ruby.      

Joseph McBride mentioned in his recent interview by Len Osanic that the late, great Orson Welles had actually written (or acquired?) a screenplay about Sirhan, in which Welles wanted to play the part of an MK-Ultra doctor involved in hypnotizing and programming Sirhan as a Manchurian candidate.

Welles, apparently, couldn't get funding for the Sirhan film.

As usual, Orson Welles was decades ahead of the curve.

[Ron Bulman]

Wells would have likely played a role as a visiting psychologist or psychiatrist at the US Naval facility in Corona California.  Landlocked as it is.  After a fall training horses nearby Sirhan's minor injuries were treated extensively there.  With him disappearing for a month or so at the time.   

Edited January 30, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[Ron Bulman]

I found this about William Joseph Bryan today looking for info on Sirhan's most recent Psychiatrist, which was fruitless so far in that respect.  I did not know Bryan was a grandson of William Jennings Bryan.  A good bit more I didn't know in it as well.

MIND GAMES: ‘William Joseph Bryan’, Sirhan’s Handler & Set-Up Maestro Extraordinaire (Flashback) | RIELPOLITIK

[W. Niederhut]

23 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

I found this about William Joseph Bryan today looking for info on Sirhan's most recent Psychiatrist, which was fruitless so far in that respect.  I did not know Bryan was a grandson of William Jennings Bryan.  A good bit more I didn't know in it as well.

MIND GAMES: ‘William Joseph Bryan’, Sirhan’s Handler & Set-Up Maestro Extraordinaire (Flashback) | RIELPOLITIK

Geez, Ron, what a frigging psychopath... 😵

What sort of twisted physician would hypnotize and program a Manchurian Candidate to murder Bobby Kennedy?

They say that the culture of any institution comes from the top down.  That was, evidently, the case with the CIA in the MK-Ultra era.

Certainly makes me wonder about the John Hinckley, Jr. case.

Incidentally, I'm finally reading A Lie Too Big to Fail this week.  The first few chapters are mostly a re-hash of material that Pease published in DiEugenio's The Assassinations anthology.

However, I didn't recall reading before that James Angleton had copies of the RFK assassination photos.

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:22 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I found this about William Joseph Bryan today looking for info on Sirhan's most recent Psychiatrist, which was fruitless so far in that respect.  I did not know Bryan was a grandson of William Jennings Bryan.  A good bit more I didn't know in it as well.

MIND GAMES: ‘William Joseph Bryan’, Sirhan’s Handler & Set-Up Maestro Extraordinaire (Flashback) | RIELPOLITIK

Re reading the article I noticed most of the info in it comes from William Turner and John Christian's book "The Assassination of Robert F Kennedy, Conspiracy and Cover Up".  My tin foil hat antenna went off, a little bit.  William Turner, a former FBI agent who quit in disgust over the assassinations and started investigating himself?  (Yep!)

I found the book on amazon where the mockingbird started chirping.  In the description . . . "mysteriously suppressed on it's initial publication".   This version was from 2006 (a dozen years before A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Pease, LIsa, DiEugenio, James: 9781627310703: Amazon.com: Books).  Where Turner is referenced on 19 pages.  Hmm.

Then the bird squawk's.  Under Editorial Review's, "About the Author" "In Superstructuralism, Harlan coins the term to cover the whole field of stucturalists, . . .  Turner never mentioned.  Read it for yourself.  The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Turner, William, Christian, Jonn: 9780786719792: Amazon.com: Books

So I thought under $6 before tax for a used copy?  Worth it for the author bio / end notes at least?  On the way.  Did I waste my money?

Then I found this.  Maybe some accounts are better read firsthand.

William W. Turner: In Memoriam (kennedysandking.com)

  

[W. Niederhut]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:44 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Re reading the article I noticed most of the info in it comes from William Turner and John Christian's book "The Assassination of Robert F Kennedy, Conspiracy and Cover Up".  My tin foil hat antenna went off, a little bit.  William Turner, a former FBI agent who quit in disgust over the assassinations and started investigating himself?  (Yep!)

I found the book on amazon where the mockingbird started chirping.  In the description . . . "mysteriously suppressed on it's initial publication".   This version was from 2006 (a dozen years before A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Pease, LIsa, DiEugenio, James: 9781627310703: Amazon.com: Books).  Where Turner is referenced on 19 pages.  Hmm.

Then the bird squawk's.  Under Editorial Review's, "About the Author" "In Superstructuralism, Harlan coins the term to cover the whole field of stucturalists, . . .  Turner never mentioned.  Read it for yourself.  The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Turner, William, Christian, Jonn: 9780786719792: Amazon.com: Books

So I thought under $6 before tax for a used copy?  Worth it for the author bio / end notes at least?  On the way.  Did I waste my money?

Then I found this.  Maybe some accounts are better read firsthand.

William W. Turner: In Memoriam (kennedysandking.com)

  

Interesting stuff, Ron.   As always, I learn something new every day here on the Education Forum.

BTW, I just finished reading the "Mind Games" chapter in A Lie Too Big to Fail.  Great chapter!

It has to be one of the most interesting things I've read in quite a while, with a multiple references that I want to explore in more detail.

Estabrooks' books are, apparently, out of print, but John Marks' 1991 book, The Search For the Manchurian Candidate, is available at Amazon.

(William Joseph Bryan hasn't published anything that I can find.)

One subject that Lisa Pease did not explore in much detail is the common relationship between childhood trauma and dissociative disorders, including psychogenic amnesia, fugue states, and dissociative identity disorder (i.e., multiple personality disorder.)

I treated a number of patients with MPD over the years.  The best book I've read on that subject is Multiple Personality Disorder, by Frank Putnam.

It sounds like Sirhan experienced horrific trauma in childhood, which must have played a significant role in his enhanced dissociative tendencies (and hypnotizability.)  It's not clear that he had identifiable alters prior to his "treatment" at the Corona facility, but the descriptions of Sirhan's psychogenic amnesia and induced "Range Mode" post-hypnotic alter state sound accurate.  It also sounds like Sirhan may have experienced some kind of torture at the Corona facility-- the Manchurian Candidate regimen?

 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[W. Niederhut]

Addendum:  Good news.  I found some of G.H. Estabrooks' out-of-print texts and commentaries on hypnosis and MK-Ultra at SCRIBD.

His earliest work antedated the Korean War military interest in the Manchurian Candidate phenomenology.

https://www.scribd.com/document/491428492/G-H-Estabrooks-Hypnotism-ocr

https://www.scribd.com/document/35683278/Brainwashing-Hypnosis-Comes-of-Age-Estabrooks

https://www.scribd.com/document/35683505/Brainwashing-MK-Ultra-Thomas-Porter

Edited February 5, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

On 1/28/2022 at 9:41 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Wells would have likely played a role as a visiting psychologist or psychiatrist at the US Naval facility in Corona California.  Landlocked as it is.  After a fall training horses nearby Sirhan's minor injuries were treated extensively there.  With him disappearing for a month or so at the time.   

Sirhan actually couldn't remember a three month period prior to the assassination.  The LAPD called it the White Cloud period, in their investigation they couldn't account for his whereabouts or any activities for 12 weeks.   

[John Butler]

On 1/25/2022 at 8:37 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I always thought the Office of Strategic Services, formed in WWII, was created to spy on the enemy.  Troop strength, movement, plans, communication etcetera.   I've read Mac Arthur in the Pacific wanted nothing to do with them, that he had his own spy network he trusted more.  Dulles based out of Switzerland used his position for his own benefit, or that of those he privately represented at the time on Wall Street.

Ron,

There is a reason why MacArthur wanted nothing to do with them.  Communist infiltration of the OSS led to its demise.  If my memory is right, in March, 1947 Truman issued an executive order banning Communists from serving in the government.

By Robert Longley

Updated on June 03, 2019

"In 1947, World War II had just ended, the Cold War had just begun, and Americans were seeing communists everywhere. It was in that politically-charged atmosphere of fear that President Harry S. Truman on March 21, 1947, issued an executive order establishing an official “Loyalty Program” intended to identify and eliminate communists in the U.S. government."

I wrote this an posted it sometime back.  It might be useful to consider in understanding the OSS/CIA transition.  The men mentioned in this old post were capable of doing anything.  I consider WWII and the men who served, particularly in the military and intelligence services, the prime cause of most of the problems we face today.  These men did horrible things in WWII and when the war was over, they did not change their tactics or strategy after the war ended.  They were still capable of doing any foul deed to win at all costs.  It is this mind set which led to things like the programs you are talking about.  

This doesn't have that much to do with MKUltra and Mocking Bird.  But, the mind set behind them led to things like the following:        

"The Oswald Project/Defector Program began with WW2 Refugees in Europe

Men in the OSS who may have known or had something to do with WW2 refugees and the Oswald Project’s origins.

James Murphy- The X-2 Counterintelligence was led by James Murphy, whose branch would have the power to veto operations of the Special Operations and Secret Intelligence Branches without explanation.^[

Allen Dulles- was assigned by the OSS to Switzerland during the war.  He obtained much of his intelligence information from refugees from all over Europe who came to Switzerland.

Dulles developed a pro-active strategy for counterintelligence:

“Wisner emphasized his own, and Dulles', views that the best defense against foreign attacks on, or infiltration of, intelligence services is active measures against those hostile services. This is often called counterespionage: measures taken to detect enemy espionage or physical attacks against friendly intelligence services, prevent damage and information loss, and, where possible, to turn the attempt back against its originator. Counterespionage goes beyond being reactive and actively tries to subvert hostile intelligence service, by recruiting agents in the foreign service, by discrediting personnel actually loyal to their own service, and taking away resources that would be useful to the hostile service. All of these actions apply to non-national threats as well as to national organizations.

If the hostile action is in one's own country or in a friendly one with co-operating police, the hostile agents may be arrested, or, if diplomats, declared persona non grata. From the perspective of one's own intelligence service, exploiting the situation to the advantage of one's side is usually preferable to arrest or actions that might result in the death of the threat. The intelligence priority sometimes comes into conflict with the instincts of one's own law enforcement organizations, especially when the foreign threat combines foreign personnel with citizens of one's country.

In some circumstances, arrest may be a first step in which the prisoner is given the choice of co-operating or facing severe consequence up to and including a death sentence for espionage. Co-operation may consist of telling all one knows about the other service but preferably actively assisting in deceptive actions against the hostile service.

Noel Field- He worked under Allen Dulles in the OSS.  Field worked in France and Switzerland to save the children of Jewish communists and Anti-facist refugees of all kinds, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, and other east European.  He worked with other organizations in France to send children to the US and other neurtral countries.  He was a communist informant (spy). 

Frank Wisner- served in the Office of Strategic Services in World War II in Romania.   And, headed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a clandestine intelligence unit, from 1948 to 1950. In 1950, the OPC was placed under the Central Intelligence Agency and renamed the Directorate of Plans.  Accused of having an affair with a communist agent by the FBI and cleared by the OSS.   

William Casey- Head of the Secret Intelligence Branch for Europe

James Angleton- Angleton and Helms probably became involved after WW2.

Richard Helms- Helms began what he would spend most of his intelligence career doing: planning and directing espionage operations from an office in Washington. In this case, the target was Germany, and the agents were run out of Central Europe and Scandinavia. Early in 1945, Helms got his first overseas assignment, in the London office of OSS’s espionage branch. Working under (and sharing a Grosvenor Street flat with) William Casey.

Others:

George Mandel, aka Giorgio Mantello, who during World War II had traded in Jewish refugees.  …. It was Mandel who had been the official founder of PERMINDEX.

Ferenc Nagy- One time leader of Hungary.  He was involved with helping refugees during WW2.  Founder of Permindex.

Andree Salomon- Andree Salomon, as the OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants or Organization to Save the Children) delegate to the Gurs and Rivesaltes Concentration Camps, in 1941 started to supervise all the preparations for the emigration of Jewish children from the camps to the U.S.A.

…. These children travelled by themselves directly to the United States, leaving their parents behind…. These children are members of that group of Holocaust Child Survivors who are "One Thousand Children." Most of their parents later were murdered by the Nazis.

There were many other Europeans who worked to save the millions of refugees in WW2.

The Golos/Bentley Soviet spy networks that had penetrated the OSS.  Each of the important agencies of the OSS that could have had something to do with the Refugee/Oswald Project were penetrated by communist spies.

1.     Secret Intelligence Branch (counterintelligence was a part at the beginning)

2.     Counterintellligence Branch X2

3.     Research and Analysis.

 

People who were involved or probably knew what Counterintelligence was doing are William Donovan and his close aid Duncan Lee as top leaders of the CIA.  William Donovan established a strong, close connection sharing between the Secret Intelligence Branch and the Counterintelligence X2 Branch.

Duncan Lee- Top aide to William Donovan.  Communist spy.

Secret Intelligence Branch:

David K. E. Bruce

Whitney Shepardson

William Casey

Richard Helms

Arthur Goldberg- alleged communist spy

 

Counterintelligence X2 branch- Orginally part of the Secret Intellligence Branch.

James Murphy-

Norman Pearson- communist spy

Allen Dulles- Switzerland

Frank Wisner- Romania

James Angleton- Britian

 

Research and Analysis:

James Phinney Baxter

William Langer

Maurice Halperin- communist spy

Donald Wheeler- communist spy

Carl Marzani- communist spy

Leonard Mins- communist spy

Soviet Spies:

The Golos/Bentley Networks that had penetrated the OSS

Possible Government agents and informants/Former Soviet Communists

Emil Gardos and Grace Gardos

Louis Weinstock

Fred Blair

If this struck you as interesting, a good book to read is:

Bill Harvey's (at the time a FBI agent) interrogation of this woman resulted in the destruction of the OSS and Truman's later establishment of the CIA.  

Edited February 5, 2022 by John Butler

[Ron Bulman]

W, thanks for your feedback here otherwise I'd of probably let the thread die, or at the least been talking to myself.  I wonder why more have not commented as I find the subject so relevant and interesting myself.  Then again I think I've said before I started with an undeclared Sociology/Psychology major until my sociology advisor said I'd need at least a Masters to make a living or a PhD to live well.  2 - 4 more years. I took 6 related classes then changed my major but still have an interest in the subject.  So maybe my interest is somewhat unique.

Regarding the thread title I wondered about something tonight.  In regard to hypnotism.  Growing up in the 60's I remember swinging watches on TV.  From what I've read in the 1950's there were TV shows featuring it, demonstrations.  I believe Lisa Pease attended one as late as the 1990's.  But not really much in the M$M since the 60's?  (Correct me, please).

Regarding ultra and the bird.  Might the bird have urged contacts to refrain from comment on the subject of hypnosis to discourage public interest in it over the years?

Possibly to portray it as quackery and unscientific?  Hoo doo voodoo stuff?  While ultra was researching the subject.  

Dulles asked Helms and Wisner in 1951 to find out if a hypnotized person could be persuaded to commit murder.

  

 

[W. Niederhut]

On 2/5/2022 at 12:38 AM, Ron Bulman said:

W, thanks for your feedback here otherwise I'd of probably let the thread die, or at the least been talking to myself.  I wonder why more have not commented as I find the subject so relevant and interesting myself.  Then again I think I've said before I started with an undeclared Sociology/Psychology major until my sociology advisor said I'd need at least a Masters to make a living or a PhD to live well.  2 - 4 more years. I took 6 related classes then changed my major but still have an interest in the subject.  So maybe my interest is somewhat unique.

Regarding the thread title I wondered about something tonight.  In regard to hypnotism.  Growing up in the 60's I remember swinging watches on TV.  From what I've read in the 1950's there were TV shows featuring it, demonstrations.  I believe Lisa Pease attended one as late as the 1990's.  But not really much in the M$M since the 60's?  (Correct me, please).

Regarding ultra and the bird.  Might the bird have urged contacts to refrain from comment on the subject of hypnosis to discourage public interest in it over the years?

Possibly to portray it as quackery and unscientific?  Hoo doo voodoo stuff?  While ultra was researching the subject.  

Dulles asked Helms and Wisner in 1951 to find out if a hypnotized person could be persuaded to commit murder.

  

 

Ron,

     These are questions I'm asking myself now, after reading Lisa Pease's Mind Games chapter.

     Did Estabrooks initiate/invent the Manchurian Candidate protocols with the U.S. military-- beginning in the 1940s, prior to the Korean War?

     Why are his books, apparently scarce and/or out-of-print?

     And why aren't Estabrooks and Bryan household names, especially in psychiatric circles?  I had never heard of these guys during my psychiatry residency training.

     (My old supervisors were mostly classically trained psychoanalysts who were not really interested in hypnosis or dissociate disorders.)

     I suspect that Estabrooks' "Manchurian Candidate" work for MK-Ultra was something that the CIA deliberately concealed from the public.

     We know that the film, Manchurian Candidate, was banned for many years in the U.S., as were public hypnosis demonstrations in many U.S. states.

     The only public hypnosis exhibition that I ever attended was in Mexico in the summer of 1973-- the same year that Richard Helms destroyed the MK-Ultra archives.

    

    

    

Edited February 9, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

My first exposure to the possibility of multiple personalities was the assignment of reading the book Sybil.

 

[Ron Bulman]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:22 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I found this about William Joseph Bryan today looking for info on Sirhan's most recent Psychiatrist, which was fruitless so far in that respect.  I did not know Bryan was a grandson of William Jennings Bryan.  A good bit more I didn't know in it as well.

MIND GAMES: ‘William Joseph Bryan’, Sirhan’s Handler & Set-Up Maestro Extraordinaire (Flashback) | RIELPOLITIK

I think I need to at least put my boots on if not the chest waders.   This is getting deep.  The above article mentions William Joseph Bryan teaching David Ferrie Hypnosis along with both being members of the Old Catholic Church (Ferrie wanted to become a priest, but like his commercial pilot job his fondness for young men blew that).  Huh, wait a minute, what?  Referenced to H. P. Albarelli's A Secret Order, pg. 435.

I pulled the book off the shelf.  Yep, it's there.  Pretty much exactly as in the article.  In the end notes for chapter three.  The one on Adele Edisen.  I kind of remember that, a weird story of an educated lady who had a weird story about being told hints about the assassination several months before it, under weird circumstances.  Hmm, might there be more info about this in the chapter?

Yes but no.  No further detail on the Ferrie info source.

But we meet Jose Rivera.  He seems to have deceived Adele into taking LSD on lifesavers and hypnotized her (a suggested severe rainstorm that kept her up all night, with nothing wet outside in the morning).  She was an intelligent woman who went on to an accomplished scientific/medical career.

Rivera worked for Sidney Gottlieb, Allen Dulles Poisoner In Chief Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control: Kinzer, Stephen: 9781250140432: Amazon.com: Books.

He was also an associate of Bryan.

Mrs. Edisen's last attempt at justice was an unanswered letter to President Obama.  Think the mockingbird's still singing?

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[W. Niederhut]

Ron,

     While reading George Estabrooks' 1943 Hypnosis text this week, I kept wondering if Oswald was carrying out some activities-- perhaps as early as his Russian "defection," and as late as Dallas-- as post-hypnotic compulsions.

     I thought I had read somewhere that David Ferrie had hypnotized Oswald, but this is the first time I've heard anything about Ferrie being in contact with the notorious William Joseph Bryan.  I wonder if Bryan, himself, had been in contact with Oswald.

Edited February 9, 2022 by W. Niederhut