Korean prisoners of<\/span> war in the 1950s were subjected to early MK-ULTRA experiments while in American custody, according to recently declassified CIA documents which confirm these experiments for the first time.<\/p>\n The only reporting that previously referenced Koreans being used as guinea pigs for these experiments was journalist John Marks\u2019s landmark 1979 book, The Search for the \u201cManchurian Candidate.\u201d<\/em><\/a> Using CIA documents, Marks traced the now-infamous MK-ULTRA project to its start, when it was known as Project Bluebird. In the book, Marks describes how, in October 1950, 25 unnamed North Korean POWs were chosen as the first test subjects to receive \u201cadvanced\u201d interrogation techniques, with the overt goal of \u201ccontrolling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n While MK-ULTRA is best known for its invasive experimentation \u2014 like LSD dosing and torture \u2014 the documents confirm Korean POWs were the unwitting subjects of less splashy attempts at mind control, like being subjected to polygraph tests, with plans for other invasive testing.<\/p>\n The declassified documents, which the National Security Archive released between December 2024 and April 2025, are available through a special collection titled \u201cCIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments and MK-ULTRA<\/a>.\u201d The National Security Archive website states that the collection<\/a> \u201cbrings together more than 1,200 essential records on one of the most infamous and abusive programs in CIA history.\u201d<\/p>\n The first reference to \u201cProject Bluebird\u201d in the NSA\u2019s collection is an office memorandum from April 5, 1950. Addressed to CIA Director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, the document lays out the project\u2019s goals, required training, and budget, all while emphasizing that knowledge of Project Bluebird \u201cshould be restricted to the absolute minimum number of persons.\u201d<\/p>\n The memo includes detailed plans for interrogation teams trained to utilize the polygraph, various drugs, and hypnotism \u201cfor personality control purposes.\u201d These teams were to be made up of three people: a doctor (ideally a psychiatrist), a hypnotist, and a polygraph technician. The memo clarifies that while the doctor and technician would need to undergo approximately five months of training, the Inspection and Security Staff\u2019s own department hypnotist could be made available immediately. In a later memo from February 2, 1951, there are inquiries into acquiring six \u201chypospray\u201d devices: experimental instruments designed to covertly inject sedatives through the skin via \u201cjet injection.\u201d There\u2019s a request to investigate modification of a \u201ctear gas pencil\u201d and other \u201cdevices of unestablished action,\u201d such as the \u201cGerman \u2018Scheintot\u2019 [sic] (appearance of death) pistol.\u201d<\/p>\n The project\u2019s proposed budget of $65,515 accounted for team salaries and equipment like syringes, towels, and film cameras. The budget also allots $18,000 for \u201cTransportation,\u201d and while the actual offshore locations are redacted, a write-up of a CIA meeting held one year later specifically notes a \u201cproject in Japan and Korea in which the Army had used a polygraph operator along with a team of psychiatrists and psychologists on Korean POWs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Although the initial proposal for Project Bluebird mostly emphasized the potential for \u201cpersonality control,\u201d it\u2019s clear that CIA officials were also interested in broader, more ambitious outcomes. One document<\/a> summarizing a \u201cspecial meeting\u201d between U.S., British, and Canadian intelligence services notes the CIA\u2019s desire to research \u201cthe psychological factors causing the human mind to accept certain political beliefs\u201d and \u201cdetermining means for combatting communism,\u201d \u201c\u2018selling\u2019 democracy,\u201d and preventing the \u201cpenetration of communism into trade unions.\u201d Another meeting held on May 9, 1950<\/a>, called for \u201cthe Surgeon General of the Army to place on the search list of the Nuremberg Trials papers request for information on drugs, narcoanalysis, and special interrogation techniques.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There were requests for other tests that, at the time, were deemed \u201cimpossible for security reasons.\u201d According to a memo from September 18, 1951, this included \u201cexperiments on the outside with SI inducted over the telephone.\u201d The writer explains that this over-the-phone hypnosis has, so far, been \u201cuniversally successful,\u201d however testing along agency lines was yet to be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n One declassified memo emphasizing the importance of the project gets more detailed, citing \u201cspecific problems which can only be resolved by experiment, testing and research.\u201d Unlike the lists of supplies necessary for Project Bluebird, the \u201cspecific problems\u201d officials hoped to explore in the experiments offer a uniquely intimate perspective into the bureau\u2019s interests. A few examples of these \u201cproblems\u201d include:\u00a0<\/p>\n This last question surrounding drug-induced amnesia would prove incredibly relevant months later, when the first team of Project Bluebird technicians arrived in Japan to carry out initial tests. According to Marks, these men \u201ctried out combinations of the depressant sodium amytal with the stimulant benzedrine on each of four subjects, the last two of whom also received a second stimulant, picrotoxin.\u201d The team was attempting to induce a state of medically administered amnesia, and according to their reports, the experiments proved successful enough to pursue further tests. Two months later, according to Marks\u2019s book, the Project Bluebird team began testing more \u201cadvanced\u201d interrogation techniques on 25 North Korean prisoners of war in Japan.<\/p>\n Notably absent from these declassified documents is any proof that similar experiments were undertaken by enemies of the U.S. The central animating myth behind MK-ULTRA and Project Bluebird is the narrative of the American soldier who returned home after months of imprisonment by enemy forces, only to be revealed as a hypnotized double agent. Throughout the Korean War, American moviegoers were screened films starring<\/a> and narrated by<\/a> future president Ronald Reagan. These films showed American troops being psychologically tortured by Chinese and North Korean soldiers until dangerous, anti-democratic ideals were implanted in their minds without their knowledge.<\/p>\n The knowledge most Americans have about these experiences are based on a work of fiction: Richard Condon\u2019s 1959 political thriller, \u201cThe Manchurian Candidate.\u201d In Condon\u2019s book (and its two film adaptations), an American soldier returns home with a secret, one that he himself isn\u2019t even aware of. While held captive by North Korean and Chinese soldiers, the American POW was brainwashed by enemy troops, unknowingly turning him into a sleeper assassin with the goal of being \u201cactivated\u201d to kill a presidential nominee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout these declassified documents are numerous reminders that the Korean War\u2019s label as \u201cThe Forgotten War\u201d serves, in part, as intentional obfuscation. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n As Project Bluebird transformed into Project Artichoke and later MK-ULTRA, the CIA\u2019s goals seemed to shift into one of beating the enemy at their own game. Essentially, programs surrounding psychological experiments were deemed necessary evils after our own troops were coming home hypnotized and transformed by our enemies. While this narrative offers a convenient excuse for why the CIA developed programs like Bluebird in the first place, one declassified document\u00a0tells a different story.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a 1983 witness testimony<\/a> from CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb, who led the MK-ULTRA experiments<\/a>, he recalls receiving confirmation that, after thorough investigation, there was no evidence any American POWs were subjected to drug-induced hypnosis at any point during the Korean War. \u201cAs I remember it,\u201d Gottlieb said, \u201c[The report] basically said that they felt that the techniques the Chinese and\/or the Koreans used were not esoteric. \u2026 [They] didn\u2019t depend upon sophisticated techniques used in drugs and other more technical means.\u201d Additionally, a 1952 memo to Allen Dulles<\/a> reinforces the CIA\u2019s willingness to fund these experiments without any proof that enemy countries were undergoing similar research: \u201cWe cannot accept this lack of evidence as proof.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n\n
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