WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE BY JACK ANDERSON 'CIA MAY HAVE INSPIRED CINQUE'

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP81M00980R000600040015-6
Release Decision: 
RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 15, 2016
Document Release Date: 
May 18, 2004
Sequence Number: 
15
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
October 5, 1978
Content Type: 
NSPR
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PDF icon CIA-RDP81M00980R000600040015-6.pdf111.82 KB
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WASHINGTON POST DATE CC-,7/ PAGE 2 C 9 THE WASHINGTON POST Thursday, October 5, 1978 DC 9 vict who served time in a California pri- son with the heiress' captor, Donald (Cinque) DeFreeze, the violent "field marshal" of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Admittedly, the convict, Clifford Jef- ferson, can hardly be considered a reli- able witness. He's serving life for mur- der and for assaulting a fellow inmate. He is known as "Death Row- Jeff." On the other hand, it's not clear what he would gain by fabricating a story. Here is Jefferson's strange tale, con- tained in an affidavit for Hearst's first defense attorney, Vincent Hallinan: In 1971 and 1972, Jefferson was con- fined with DeFreeze at a facility in Va- caville, Calif. "In the early part of 1971, DeFreeze stated to me that the CIA was conducting tests to try out certain drugs on inmates, and he had been in on it," states, Jefferson's sworn testi= mony. He continued: "These tests were on the third floor of the facility in B3: I went there and met two CIA men who were giving these tests. They gave me.drugs, includ- ing mescaline, Quaalude and Artane. These drugs first made me terribly frightened, then other-, drugs were given to calm me down... "DeFreeze stated that he had gone through the same tests and .also knew of stress tests that were given to prison. ers, in which they were kept in solitary, harassed and annoyed until they would do anything asked of them to get out; then they were given these drugs and would become like robots. "He [DeFreeze] said that when he got and other drugs, and the person would become a robot and do anything he was asked to do-including killing others. "He thought a good one to kidnap would be one of the Kennedys. Then the revolutionary group would get great publicity and could get the per- son to get them money." DeFreeze left the Vacaville facility in late 1972. He and his cohorts kidnaped Hearst in 1974, and according to testi- mony at her trial, kept her bound and blindfolded in a closet for 54 days. Jefferson, of course, has no way of knowing whether this treatment was used. in tandem with LSD or other drugs, as Hallinan suspects, to trans- form the daughter of a millionaire into "Tana;" the machine-gun-toting; bank- robbing revolutionary. DeFreeze was killed in 1974 in a shootout with police in Los Angeles. But CIA files confirm that the agency did conduct drug experiments on Va- caville inmates as part ' of what was known as the MK-Ultra program. This was designed to study the ef- fects of stress and drugs on prisoners of war, to determine the point at which they would crack and become robot- like slaves, doing and saying anything they were ordered to. Casting doubt on Jefferson's credibil- ity, Vacaville Superintendent T. Law- rence Clanon told our associate Gary Cohn there is no evidence the CIA con- ducted any experiments at Vacaville after 1968-two years before DeFreeze entered the prison. Approved For Release 2004/05/21 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600040015-6 CIA May Have Inspired Cim ue Did the Central Intelligence Agency out, he would get a revolutionary group Furthermore, he said, DeFreeze unwittingly inspire the kidnaping of to kidnap some rich person. They could not have known of the CIA's in- Patricia Hearst? This bizarre possibility would hold that person tied up in a volvement in the Vacaville experiments is raised in a sworn statement by a con- dark place, keep him frightened and in until 'August 1976, when it was dis- closed. Thus, DeFreeze, could' not have, told anyone that the CIA was conduc- ting the tests, as Jefferson's affidavit says. On the other hand, Clanon acknowl- edged that DeFreeze had volunteered for medical research in July 1970, shortly after he entered Vacaville. And a source familiar with the CIA's experi- ments at Vacaville said it is uncertain when the, agency ended its testing there. In their, affidavits to the federal judge who presided at the Hearst trial, Hearst's lawyers described the symptoms they observed when they first interviewed her as consistent with those of a person having a nervous breakdown or under the influence of "drugs. . Another affidavit, by a college friend of the heiress, described similar symptoms of emotional disorder that he and his wife observed during a jail visit ' A wild story; certainly, and perhaps nothing more than the product of an im- aginative convict's mind. But stranger sto- ries about the CIA, initially scoffed at as the ravings of science-fiction or spy-novel buffs, have turned out to be true. Watch .on Waste-In addition to. their, own monthly telephone bills, tax- payers also pick up the tab for the fed- eral government's phone calls. In Wash- ington, D.C., alone, phone calls by fed- eral employes add up to $7 million a month. Simple arithmetic reveals that Washington's bureaucrats chat on the phone to the tune of $84 million a year.