This article seeks to aid readers to understand some newly uncovered facts that anyone may verify. More and more evidence is amassing that reveals that the CIA did, in fact, launch the psychedelic revolution and counterculture, and that it was not blow back as is the common understanding. Here we’ll show how academics, authors, and spies (some were all three), colluded together to mislead everything the public thinks it knows about the MKULTRA program and the subsequent counterculture and psychedelic revolution, as well as how this type of information manipulation bleeds into nearly every area of our lives. By the end of this article it will be clear how the CIA and intelligence community perform this function against the American people.
Articles in this series:
1) R. Gordon Wasson: The Man, the Legend, the Myth. Beginning a New History of Magic Mushrooms, Ethnomycology,and the Psychedelic Revolution. By Jan Irvin, May 13, 2012 2) How Darwin, Huxley, and the Esalen Institute launched the 2012 and psychedelic revolutions – and began one of the largest mind control operations in history. Some brief notes. By Jan Irvin, August 28, 2012 3) Manufacturing the Deadhead: A Product of Social Engineering, by Joe Atwill and Jan Irvin, May 13, 2013 4) Entheogens: What’s in a Name? The Untold History of Psychedelic Spirituality, Social Control, and the CIA, by Jan Irvin, November 11, 2014
Spies in Academic Clothing: The Untold History of MKULTRA and the Counterculture – And How the Intelligence Community Misleads the 99%
From the Essay…. [snip]
In her book The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders makes startling revelations regarding the CIA’s clandestine books program. Citing the Frank Church Committee and the New York Times, she states that by 1977 the CIA had published over 1000 books, including those, ironically on “indigenous national or international organizations” – which would very likely include neo-shamanism and “native revivalism”.
If you’re a reader like I am, or even if you’ve ever read a book sometime in your life, then that means you may have read a book that was written by an intelligence agent and it’s likely, as Saunders shows, that you were misled. And even though this article pertains to the CIA’s MKULTRA program and the counterculture, it will provide insight into how the CIA (and intelligence community as a whole) influences information in other books and areas – including academia – as well.
As I’ll show in this essay, by 1979 things hadn’t changed much. And even to this day it seems the CIA, et al, is cranking out propaganda in book form (along with movies, music and other forms of pop-culture). And as we’ll see, it wasn’t just in international publications, but in books and media right here at home that intentionally misled the public regarding major issues of concern.
In my study of the CIA’s MKULTRA program I made the startling discovery that all of the early books on the subject, and very many of the later ones, were written by authors of the CIA and intelligence community to misguide the public’s perception of MKULTRA and what it was (and is) really about. This may seem like an outrageous “conspiracy theory” now, but as we go along the evidence will speak for itself.
The typical level of deception in most of these books seems to follow something along the lines of 70/30. If the authors of these books that have mislead public perception, as well as historical research, were entirely inaccurate, they would be easily found out. But by using a general rule of about 70% facts and 30% deception, these authors and academics for the intelligence community are able to tell their version of history while at the same time providing a misleading glimpse into the world of intelligence. And with some effort and research, one is able to stitch together, by little bits from each of these publications, and by digging through university library archives, etc., a much more accurate picture. This essay focuses on exposing the 30% deception and how it works – and how a major aspect of MKULTRA was covered up until the present day.
Over the years I’ve been able to piece together a much different perception of MKULTRA and the counterculture revolution, most of which I’ve revealed on the Gnostic Media website. In Gordon Wasson, the Man, the Legend, The Myth, 2012; and in Manufacturing the Deadhead, 2013, with Joe Atwill, and more recently in Entheogens: What’s In a Name?, 2014, and in online videos and documentaries, I’ve revealed a large amount of primary evidence that shows that the official version of the MKULTRA story and psychedelic revolution is just another cover-up, and one that the CIA and intelligence community managed to get away with long after the MKULTRA program was first “exposed” in the 1970s. In doing this research I’ve been able to piece together how this deception works and is perpetuated throughout the intelligence community, and onto, or against, the “public” at large.
As Howard Zinn wrote in The Peoples' History of the United States:
The Church Committee uncovered CIA operations to secretly influence the minds of Americans:
The CIA is now using several hundred American academics (administrators, faculty members, graduate students engaged in teaching) who, in addition to providing leads and, on occasion, making introductions for intelligence purposes, write books and other material to be used for propaganda purposes abroad. . . These academics are located in over 100 American colleges, universities and related institutions. At the majority of institutions, no one other than the individual concerned is aware of the CIA link. At the others, at least one university official is aware of the operational use of academics on his campus... The CIA considers these operational relationships within the U.S. academic community as perhaps its most sensitive domestic area and has strict controls governing these operations. . ..
In 1961 the chief of the CIA's Covert Action Staff wrote that books were "the most important weapon of strategic propaganda." The Church Committee found that more than a thousand books were produced, subsidized, or sponsored by the CIA before the end of 1967.[2]
Episode 228 is a “cross-interview” with Prof. James F. Tracy, titled: “From Spies in Academic Clothing to Sandy Hook”. – we’ll be interviewing each other. This episode is being released Saturday, May 16, 2015, and was recorded May 13.
This episode is about my new article released this week: Spies in Academic Clothing, and the Trivium; and also on James’ work on Sandy Hook, and “Conspiracy Theories”..
James Tracy is a media scholar, educator and political analyst located in South Florida. He received his PhD from University of Iowa. Tracy's work on media history and politics has appeared in a wide variety of academic journals, edited volumes, and alternative news and opinion outlets. He achieved national notoriety in 2013 for questioning the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and Boston Marathon bombing, and has since conducted extensive research on those events, available at his website, memoryholeblog.com. Tracy also hosts a weekly interview program, Real Politik, on TruthFrequencyRadio.com, and is an affiliate of Project Censored. DOWNLOADABLE MP3 OF THE INTERVIEW HERE:http://www.gnosticmedia.com/SpiesinAcademicClothing_MKULTRA Also see: http://www.triviumeducation.comhttp://www.tragedyandhope.com
This video is the first to reveal the background origins of the Esalen institute through Aldous and Julian Huxley, both grandson's of Charles Darwin's "Bulldog" Sir. Thomas Henry Huxley. The Huxleys helped found the Esalen institute to promote Julian Huxley's eugenics, humanism, transhumanism and feminism to manipulate middle class Americans into following their agenda through psychedelics and the new age movement.
This is not to say that psychedelics or entheogens don't have value, it just means that devious people have usurped them and created a false movement to fool people into thinking that they've completed their task of freeing their minds.
As McKenna says in one quote found shortly after we film this video:
"This was in '67 when I was a sophomore in college. The interest in altered states of consciousness came simply from, I don't know whether I was a precocious kid or what, but I was very early into the New York literary scene, and even though I lived in a small town in Colorado, I subscribed to the Village Voice, and there I encountered propaganda about LSD, mescaline, and all these experiments that the late beatniks were involved in. Then I read The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, and it just rolled from there. That was what really put me over. ***I respected Huxley as a novelist, and I was slowly reading everything he'd ever written, and when I got to The Doors of Perception I said to myself, "There's something going on here for sure.***"
~ Terence McKenna - From Mushrooms, Elves, and Magic.
DOWNLOAD THE DATABASE THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE! Online Brain investigation database: Investigating Wasson Brain -- MK-ULTRA and the launching the psychedelic and environmental movements … More info ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b9OvRAKfzw
Deanna’s guest was Jan Irvin, publisher of Gnostic Media, Trivium Education, and co-author of Manufacturing the Deadhead: A product of social engineering. They discussed his recent article, Spies in Academic Clothing: The Untold History of MKULTRA and the Counterculture – And How the Intelligence Community Misleads the 99%. (MP3) . . .http://spingolaspeaks.net/2015/05/23/jan-irvin/
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In psychology, the term ‘interrogation’ is often fraught with negative notions like fear, mistrust and some cases, it’s a slippery slope to torture. In a similar vein, the western concept of the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Russia’s national security agency from 1954-1991) shares many of the same notions. Studies surrounding interrogations have been telling us for decades about the dangerous perils of psychological coercion that elicit false confessions, yet our legal system allows for trickery, lies and various environmental manipulations to be used at the cost of persecuting the innocent, diminishing the integrity of the system and challenging of our understanding of human and victim rights. The common thought is the more pressure applied, the sooner the object (person of interest) will break and reveal truthful information leading to either a conviction or valuable intel, in spite of what experts in false confessions like Saul Kassin, have been telling us for years. Nonetheless, along with assets and intelligence work (surveillance), it remains that one of the most important aspects of espionage and information gathering from local levels up to national security.
In 2005, ABC News reported that:
Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department’s office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets.” via
My source, for the purpose of this series, a former KGB operative specializing in espionage, counterintelligence, and no less, a trained sniper, would vehemently disagree and take insult with the above quote, since by his accounts it’s backwards. With over 30 years experience in KGB, he presents himself as someone well versed in the art of recruitment of assets (trusted informants recruited operatives), interrogation and will not hesitate to inform you he was “the best KGB sources and never made a single mistake”. His view of how the US conducts its intelligence gathering and maintains national security are as you might expect, strongly negative and borderline arrogant, until you realize he possesses highly specialized training with a rare background that qualifies at an expert level to allow such bold assessments and he knows the strategies to back it up. When the question of how to trust this individual arises, rather than incessantly inculcate his background, papers or credentials; we must remember this quote when speaking about Russia or KGB business.
The SVR looms and operates from a headquarters outside (and presumably above, elevation-wise) Moscow via
Over an extensive period of emails, phone calls and meetings on crowded New York City streets, he candidly shared his life story: childhood to adult, education and training, professional and some very personal. He applies observational methods, uses simple pattern spotting, psychological strategies, brainwashing and concepts of triangulation thereby constructing a perception of current/future events which range interesting at the least, and frightening if true. Events that he will discuss may sound preposterous and warrant a reminder that although to westerners, the memory of the KGB secret police is filled with corruption, lies, spies, threats, power and killing… and although the KGB still basically exists in the form of the SVR (with the FSB as the counterespionage agency) my contact considers himself a professional living in the U.S. under political asylum, since returning to Russia or the Ukraine would be certain death. And perhaps he isn’t safe here either. To this end, he is eager to share his knowledge and very interested in comparing his experience and learned psychological techniques of the last 3 decades to the accepted science of today. The idea going forward is to share his background, his knowledge and to strain his education and field experience in the KGB though a psychological screen to understand the methods used then and what that can tell us about the methods used now in similar situations. This is then, a case study of real-life field experience vs scientific or lab research on topics such as interrogation, torture, behavior modification, brain washing and more.
We jump in today, with the topic of interrogation moving towards torture. I am told of nearly 3 dozen accounts of interrogations at KGB district field offices, that doesn’t meet the fast, furious wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am that Hollywood has us believe, nor entirely representative of the graphic Guantanamo images, but rather a long thorough investigation-operation which includes information gathering on the subject which could take months or years, “cooking” the subject (letting him wait, increasing anxiety), building a rapport, using incentives then, if needed using tricks or blackmail, threats of physical violence or rape if in a jail. He stressed that gathering as much info as you can on the subject and rapport building are key techniques, it gardens larger amounts and accurate information. If you have to use more drastic methods or torture- perhaps your intel was not good enough. Once you have the object, there are several techniques that are designed to encourage dialogue:
good cop / bad cop
“story under a story” (after intense interrogation the object tells a different story — which is not true, either)
bombing with questions
pressure by not interrogating
“silence makes your situation worse” trick
“admit one small episode and that’s it” trick
“I help you - you help me” trick
“shift” meaning try to shift the blame away from the suspect to some other person or set of circumstances that prompted the subject to commit the crime. That is, develop themes containing reasons that will justify or excuse the crime. Themes may be developed or changed to find one to which the accused is most responsive.
Many of these methods mirror the trickery used in the US system that have helped make research claims of unaccountably, misconduct very credible. However, my contact insists simply that if they did not work, they would not be used while maintaining that the intelligence gathered before hand is the main aspect from which all other activities are measured.
In doing over 30 interrogations, what was the most effective method you found in getting reliable, accurate information?
xKGB: The “Breaking" method. The most important thing is to make the object talk by telling him that you want to just to understand what happened and “we, together, may find the way to deal somehow with the situation which "is not very bad right now”. The object, of course, will lie to you, but it doesn’t matter - he’s talking, he “swallowed the bait”. You listen to him, you write down everything and then you break his story into episodes. Then you start interrogating him on each episode but in chaotic order, like episode #1, then #5, then the last one, #4, etc. It’s pretty hard for the object keep logical lying if you act like this - he’ll change his story and put some true details to make it real. Extract those details and help him to tell the truth around them.
He states that every object has a breaking point and there are some indicators that the object is near his breaking point or has already reached it, i.e. leans forward and his facial expression indicates an interest in the proposal or is more hesitant in his argument, he is probably nearing the breaking point.
If several methods of interrogation were used, are they used in a specific order to increase the pressure to talk, or was it dependant on the object’s demeanor/personality or urgency of obtaining the info?
xKGB: Let me tell you most important thing about interrogations, tortures. If you deal with a “lonely wolf” (self-made terrorist) who won’t talk, you have no choice but to torture him to get info on his possible connections, place where he’s keeping guns or explosives, etc. But if you interrogate a member of organization, you MUST HAVE ASSETS INSIDE THIS ORGANIZATION and you don’t have to torture anybody.
National security isn’t CIA and FBI #1 priority, that’s why they mostly wait for walk-in recruits, I call it a “Newton Syndrome” (referencing a falling apple in your lap).
How long would a general interrogation last compared before possibly evolving into a torture session?
xKGB: If it’s a lonely “wolf” and he’s very aggressive, refuses to talk, and you know he has connections, you start tortures right away. If it’s organization member and you have no assets inside organization, leave him alone and resign next morning, like an idiot.
How often would the interrogation warrant moving to torture type procedures?
xKGB: It’s impossible to determine, it depends how professional you are, how you use methods and tricks, how fast you can establish rapport.
Regarding the Reid interrogation technique and issues eliciting false confessions from accused offenders using minimization and maximization tricks; in your experience has any unreliable/untrue info ever elicited from interrogation? How about torture? What do you attribute that to?
xKGB: The thing is, if you deal with a professional, he usually has “a story under the story” which he offers you as true after intensive interrogation and tortures (people tend to believe info they get after torturing the object). But he can’t lie to me if I have enough intel on, say, his organization. That’s very important - how well are you prepared for interrogation? What is professional factual analysis? It the longest list of questions you have to answer before you interrogate.
When you detect that the object’s will has broken in an interrogation, what is the first question you ask?
xKGB: Nothing. Do not rush the object, do not humiliate him to show you’re ,finally, a winner and he’s the loser - he’s gonna close up. Just keep on developing the talk, don’t jump out of your chair and be quiet. It’s like a poker.
How did you confirm the information they provided as true, before moving on it?
xKGB: It depends if you have other sources, other facts, documents and how fast you can check up the information.
What is training like, or the schooling you were expedited through? (for example, the CIA interviews candidates in multiple rounds and does psychological and physical tests.)
xKGB: CIA are idiots. KGB hires people in 2 ways: a) Human Resources division b) field offices. When KGB officer has a candidate, he’s checking his biography, relatives, his life, habits, connections, etc. It’s very good if candidate is or was an agent (asset). Then the officer makes an offer and the candidate goes through a whole row of doctors at KGB clinic. If health is OK, biography is OK, he’s in. Psychological tests?…KGB was playing this game couple of years early 80’s and then it appeared tests had nothing to do with the ability to recruit and work with agents. My best friend was the best of the best after “psychological tests”, he joined KGB and left in one month - couldn’t work with traitors, too dirty for him. No physical tests - for what? KGB officers don’t run marathons. Training is Counterintelligence School or Intelligence Academy.
What was the interrogation process like, emotionally?
xKGB: Just a job, not fun. “No mercy, no ideology, no emotions.”
Recent law review articles have discussed the “psychological difficulty of distinguishing between torture and enhanced interrogation” for purposes of law and policy. There isn’t even a clear definition. The argument is that the “torture standard is unreliable because of the marked variation in the manner in which different jurisdictions interpret and employ it”. They also use psychological research to demonstrate the standard’s invalidity as well as “identify the existence of two separate psychological biases that impede objective application of the torture standard” via
Emboldened by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush administration lost no time establishing a policy that authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” that is, torture and abuse.
MKULTRA was unclear in its mission, but having total control over the actions or perceptions of a test subject seemed to be the common goal. And for a control freak employed un the intelligence community, having this type of power over people (via brainwashing) is better than James Bond styled-sex and Krispy Kream donuts.
BY COMMANDER LADY ATHENA AND THE ASHTAR COMMAND http://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/profile/CmdrLadyAthena Dear Commanders, You have asked information about our ships and which one you might be working upon? My answer may be more than you originally…
ANCIENT AWAKENINGS Sunday Call 3/27/2022 (Sananda, OWS, & Shoshanna)James & JoAnna McConnell THE GREAT AWAKENING IS NOW COMING TO A CONCLUSION Sananda and One Who Serves channeled by James McConnellShoshanna – Joanna’s Higher Self These messages…
ANCIENT AWAKENINGS Sunday Call 3/20/2022 (Ashtar, OWS, & Shoshanna)James & JoAnna McConnell YOU ARE CREATING YOUR NEW REALITY Ashtar and One Who Serves channeled by James McConnellShoshanna – Joanna’s Higher Self These messages were given during…
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This example, as per my November 2021…"
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Replies
Thank you both for unveiling/uncovering and sharing this important yet disturbing info how these people can justify their actions is beyond me.
then ther's the Chinese, n koreans -etc
INTRO. Interrogation and Tortures
In psychology, the term ‘interrogation’ is often fraught with negative notions like fear, mistrust and some cases, it’s a slippery slope to torture. In a similar vein, the western concept of the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Russia’s national security agency from 1954-1991) shares many of the same notions. Studies surrounding interrogations have been telling us for decades about the dangerous perils of psychological coercion that elicit false confessions, yet our legal system allows for trickery, lies and various environmental manipulations to be used at the cost of persecuting the innocent, diminishing the integrity of the system and challenging of our understanding of human and victim rights. The common thought is the more pressure applied, the sooner the object (person of interest) will break and reveal truthful information leading to either a conviction or valuable intel, in spite of what experts in false confessions like Saul Kassin, have been telling us for years. Nonetheless, along with assets and intelligence work (surveillance), it remains that one of the most important aspects of espionage and information gathering from local levels up to national security.
In 2005, ABC News reported that:
My source, for the purpose of this series, a former KGB operative specializing in espionage, counterintelligence, and no less, a trained sniper, would vehemently disagree and take insult with the above quote, since by his accounts it’s backwards. With over 30 years experience in KGB, he presents himself as someone well versed in the art of recruitment of assets (trusted informants recruited operatives), interrogation and will not hesitate to inform you he was “the best KGB sources and never made a single mistake”. His view of how the US conducts its intelligence gathering and maintains national security are as you might expect, strongly negative and borderline arrogant, until you realize he possesses highly specialized training with a rare background that qualifies at an expert level to allow such bold assessments and he knows the strategies to back it up. When the question of how to trust this individual arises, rather than incessantly inculcate his background, papers or credentials; we must remember this quote when speaking about Russia or KGB business.
The SVR looms and operates from a headquarters outside (and presumably above, elevation-wise) Moscow via
Over an extensive period of emails, phone calls and meetings on crowded New York City streets, he candidly shared his life story: childhood to adult, education and training, professional and some very personal. He applies observational methods, uses simple pattern spotting, psychological strategies, brainwashing and concepts of triangulation thereby constructing a perception of current/future events which range interesting at the least, and frightening if true. Events that he will discuss may sound preposterous and warrant a reminder that although to westerners, the memory of the KGB secret police is filled with corruption, lies, spies, threats, power and killing… and although the KGB still basically exists in the form of the SVR (with the FSB as the counterespionage agency) my contact considers himself a professional living in the U.S. under political asylum, since returning to Russia or the Ukraine would be certain death. And perhaps he isn’t safe here either. To this end, he is eager to share his knowledge and very interested in comparing his experience and learned psychological techniques of the last 3 decades to the accepted science of today. The idea going forward is to share his background, his knowledge and to strain his education and field experience in the KGB though a psychological screen to understand the methods used then and what that can tell us about the methods used now in similar situations. This is then, a case study of real-life field experience vs scientific or lab research on topics such as interrogation, torture, behavior modification, brain washing and more.
We jump in today, with the topic of interrogation moving towards torture. I am told of nearly 3 dozen accounts of interrogations at KGB district field offices, that doesn’t meet the fast, furious wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am that Hollywood has us believe, nor entirely representative of the graphic Guantanamo images, but rather a long thorough investigation-operation which includes information gathering on the subject which could take months or years, “cooking” the subject (letting him wait, increasing anxiety), building a rapport, using incentives then, if needed using tricks or blackmail, threats of physical violence or rape if in a jail. He stressed that gathering as much info as you can on the subject and rapport building are key techniques, it gardens larger amounts and accurate information. If you have to use more drastic methods or torture- perhaps your intel was not good enough. Once you have the object, there are several techniques that are designed to encourage dialogue:
Many of these methods mirror the trickery used in the US system that have helped make research claims of unaccountably, misconduct very credible. However, my contact insists simply that if they did not work, they would not be used while maintaining that the intelligence gathered before hand is the main aspect from which all other activities are measured.
In doing over 30 interrogations, what was the most effective method you found in getting reliable, accurate information?
xKGB: The “Breaking" method. The most important thing is to make the object talk by telling him that you want to just to understand what happened and “we, together, may find the way to deal somehow with the situation which "is not very bad right now”. The object, of course, will lie to you, but it doesn’t matter - he’s talking, he “swallowed the bait”. You listen to him, you write down everything and then you break his story into episodes. Then you start interrogating him on each episode but in chaotic order, like episode #1, then #5, then the last one, #4, etc. It’s pretty hard for the object keep logical lying if you act like this - he’ll change his story and put some true details to make it real. Extract those details and help him to tell the truth around them.
He states that every object has a breaking point and there are some indicators that the object is near his breaking point or has already reached it, i.e. leans forward and his facial expression indicates an interest in the proposal or is more hesitant in his argument, he is probably nearing the breaking point.
If several methods of interrogation were used, are they used in a specific order to increase the pressure to talk, or was it dependant on the object’s demeanor/personality or urgency of obtaining the info?
xKGB: Let me tell you most important thing about interrogations, tortures. If you deal with a “lonely wolf” (self-made terrorist) who won’t talk, you have no choice but to torture him to get info on his possible connections, place where he’s keeping guns or explosives, etc. But if you interrogate a member of organization, you MUST HAVE ASSETS INSIDE THIS ORGANIZATION and you don’t have to torture anybody.
National security isn’t CIA and FBI #1 priority, that’s why they mostly wait for walk-in recruits, I call it a “Newton Syndrome” (referencing a falling apple in your lap).
How long would a general interrogation last compared before possibly evolving into a torture session?
xKGB: If it’s a lonely “wolf” and he’s very aggressive, refuses to talk, and you know he has connections, you start tortures right away. If it’s organization member and you have no assets inside organization, leave him alone and resign next morning, like an idiot.
How often would the interrogation warrant moving to torture type procedures?
xKGB: It’s impossible to determine, it depends how professional you are, how you use methods and tricks, how fast you can establish rapport.
Regarding the Reid interrogation technique and issues eliciting false confessions from accused offenders using minimization and maximization tricks; in your experience has any unreliable/untrue info ever elicited from interrogation? How about torture? What do you attribute that to?
xKGB: The thing is, if you deal with a professional, he usually has “a story under the story” which he offers you as true after intensive interrogation and tortures (people tend to believe info they get after torturing the object). But he can’t lie to me if I have enough intel on, say, his organization. That’s very important - how well are you prepared for interrogation? What is professional factual analysis? It the longest list of questions you have to answer before you interrogate.
When you detect that the object’s will has broken in an interrogation, what is the first question you ask?
xKGB: Nothing. Do not rush the object, do not humiliate him to show you’re ,finally, a winner and he’s the loser - he’s gonna close up. Just keep on developing the talk, don’t jump out of your chair and be quiet. It’s like a poker.
How did you confirm the information they provided as true, before moving on it?
xKGB: It depends if you have other sources, other facts, documents and how fast you can check up the information.
What is training like, or the schooling you were expedited through? (for example, the CIA interviews candidates in multiple rounds and does psychological and physical tests.)
xKGB: CIA are idiots. KGB hires people in 2 ways: a) Human Resources division b) field offices. When KGB officer has a candidate, he’s checking his biography, relatives, his life, habits, connections, etc. It’s very good if candidate is or was an agent (asset). Then the officer makes an offer and the candidate goes through a whole row of doctors at KGB clinic. If health is OK, biography is OK, he’s in. Psychological tests?…KGB was playing this game couple of years early 80’s and then it appeared tests had nothing to do with the ability to recruit and work with agents. My best friend was the best of the best after “psychological tests”, he joined KGB and left in one month - couldn’t work with traitors, too dirty for him. No physical tests - for what? KGB officers don’t run marathons. Training is Counterintelligence School or Intelligence Academy.
What was the interrogation process like, emotionally?
xKGB: Just a job, not fun. “No mercy, no ideology, no emotions.”
Recent law review articles have discussed the “psychological difficulty of distinguishing between torture and enhanced interrogation” for purposes of law and policy. There isn’t even a clear definition. The argument is that the “torture standard is unreliable because of the marked variation in the manner in which different jurisdictions interpret and employ it”. They also use psychological research to demonstrate the standard’s invalidity as well as “identify the existence of two separate psychological biases that impede objective application of the torture standard” via
Next up: From Interrogation to Tortures
MKULTRA was unclear in its mission, but having total control over the actions or perceptions of a test subject seemed to be the common goal. And for a control freak employed un the intelligence community, having this type of power over people (via brainwashing) is better than James Bond styled-sex and Krispy Kream donuts.