DRUG NOTIFICATION PROGRAM - STATUS REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050037-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 22, 2003
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: January 8, 1979
• Content Type: MF

r.
Approved F elease 2004/06/29 : CIA-RDP83-001 0030005 037
00 allA Registry
'_ F
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
FROM: John F. Blake
Deputy Director for Administration
SUBJECT: Drug Notification Program - Status Report
1. Action Requested: Your signature on three letters is
requested,:.
a. A letter to Secretary Califano requesting that he desig-
nate someone to furnish guidance on how to apply rules
or standards of the Government developed for use of
other agencies whose research projects have put them in
positions of having to seek and notify subjects; to fur-
nish guidance about whether CIA is the best agency to
take the lead in a notification program, since other
agencies of the government were involved in the MKULTRA
program; and to help us with a pharmacological evaluation
of drugs used to determine their potential for having
caused harmful long term aftereffects.
b. A letter to the Secretary of the-:Army requesting that
subjects of research under project OFTEN be included
in the Army notification program. Apparently there were
only two such individuals and there is some difference
of opinion between the Department of Defense and the
Agency about whether testing was done while the project
was being funded by CIA or after Agency funding termi-
nated. Regardless of that issue, if tests were done they
were conducted by Army personnel under Army procedures
and protocols at an Army installation using a substance
developed in an Army R&D program. Under these circum-
stances it seems reasonable that test subjects should be
notified by the Army if notification is appropriate.
c. A letter to the Attorney General-requesting assistance in
seeking and interviewing present or former employees of
the Bureau of Narcotics to find out what really happened
in the New York and San Francisco safehouses. CIA may be
somewhat less culpable for any direct role in unwitting
Approved For Release 2004/06/29 : CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050037-0
 Approved Felease 2004/06/29 2CIA-RDP83-001000300050037-0
testing than we were prepared to state at the time of the
Senate hearings. A 1943 memorandum to General Donovan
transmitting a report from George White has been found re-
porting unwitting use of drugs as an aid in the interroga-
tion of a Mafia figure at a safehouse in New York in 1943.
At that time George White was a Bureau of Narcotics employ-
ee working with or assigned to OSS. This is the same
George White who was the principal in the safehouse oper-
ations attributed to CIA in the 1950's. Former CIA employ-
ees with whom the question has been discussed have said that
the safehouses were primarily for Bureau of Narcotics, not
CIA use. It seems possible that what went on in the safe-
houses remains a mystery because the right question has
never been asked of the right people. The Senate questioners
asked only what CIA was doing in the safehouses and no one
questioned could furnish details. What the Bureau of Nar-
cotics Agents were doing in those safehouses remains to
be asked. The letter you are requested to sign is intended
to open the door to find the right person to ask.
2. Status Report:
a. Deputy Directors and Directors of Offices involved in
the drug research programs have given their assurances
that, barring only human error, there are no drug related
programs or projects that have not been surfaced.
b. Drugs used in BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE are not likely to have
caused harmful long term aftereffects, and drugs were ad-
ministered only to foreign nationals, e.g., defectors
and prisoners of war; no U.S. citizens were involved as
subjects. No further action is required.
c. Project CHICKWIT was concerned with collection of infor-
mation about foreign pharmaceuticals. No human testing
was involved. No further action is required.
d. Project OFTEN is discussed in paragraph l.b. above.
Subject to your signature on the letter to the Secretary
of the Army, no further action is required.
e. 85 of the 1,1KULTRA, MKSEARCH and follow on Grants did not
involve human experimentation, and no further action is
required.
f. 40 of the MKULTRA/MKSEARCH/Grants where humans were in-
volved require no further action. 18 of these require
no action because no drugs were involved. 22 require no
further action because drugs used were not likely to
have caused harmful aftereffects; subjects were witting
volunteers, usually paid; research was conducted under
Approved For Release 2004/06/29 2C1A-RDP83-00156R000300050037-0
 Approved Fifelease 2004/06/29 3CtA-RDP83-001000300050037-0
the management and substantive control of the institution
such that there is no CIA liability; or some combination
of these factors.
MKULTRA, MKSEARCH and the Research Grants where human
involvement is known or suspected are divided, for the
sake of convenience, between those involved with insti-
tutions and those involved with the safehouses in New
York and San Francisco.
(1)
Six MKULTRA subprojects relate to the safehouses.
The letter to the Attorney General described in para-
graph l.c. above is intended to get at part of the
safehouse problem. Letters seeking interviews with
eight former Agency employees known to have been
acquainted with'the MKULTRA program are ready for dis-
patch as soon as we have current addresses. In addi-
tion, letters have been addressed to the physician
in New York and the physician in San Francisco who
acted as medical consultants to the safehouse opera-
tions requesting their assistance and interviews. We
have not yet heard from New York but we have received
a long letter from San Francisco. A copy of that
letter is attached and is worth careful reading.
Each of these physicians was also involved with four
MKULTRA/MKSEARCH projects (4 on the west coast and
4 on the east coast) conducted at institutions. The
institutional projects with which these physicians
were associated used witting, paid volunteers; the
fact and substance of the research was known to the
institutions involved; and, insofar as can be de-
termined, the rules and procedures of the institu-
tions were followed. Only the fact of CIA funding
was concealed. The letter from the San Francisco
physician confims these conclusions. The institutions
have accepted implicit responsibility for the work
done and the manner in which it was conducted.
(2) Other than those projects related to the safehouses,
only 15 subprojects involving only four researchers
and possibly one institution require action. Action
is required in these cases to seek further informa-
tion; not because there is any suggestion that anyone
might have been harmed. The files simply are too in-
complete to permit confident conclusive judgments to
be made. Further, three of the four investigators
were at one time employed by the Agency, were involved
in 14 of the 15 subprojects requiring action, and may
have some knowledge beyond the scope of the particular
projects with which they were directly involved that
Approved For Release 2004/06/29 :3CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050037-0
 Approved Foelease 2004/06/29 4CtA-RDP83-001000300050037-0
might be helpful. Letters have been sent to two
of these individuals, and letters to the other two
are ready as soon as we have current addresses.
STAT
STAT
vancement of psychiatry, pharmacology and medicine.
Finally, as a matter of interest, I would like to bring to your
3. Summa :
In sum, unwitting testing sponsored directly by CIA seems to have
been limited almost exclusively to the safehouse operations. Whether CIA
or the Bureau of Narcotics was most directly responsible remains to be
determined. Apart from the safehouse activities we have found for the
most part that CIA was interested in the results of research initiated
and sponsored by other organizations and conducted in accordance with
professional and ethical standards applicable to the particular circum-
stances at the time. We have found no evidence that CIA exerted undue
influence or attempted to coerce individuals or institutions to undertake
research they might not otherwise have undertaken nor did the Agency at-
tempt to cause any compromise of professional and ethical standards under
which the research was conducted. None of the research conducted by pri-
vate institutions was clandestine; studies were carried out openly and
the results in many cases were published. As a matter of fact, it can
even be reported that some significant contributions were made to the ad-
attention one paragraph of a letter received from the President of
ing him of
in response to the General Counsel's letter last year notify-
involvement. The President of said:-
"If I had been at the time individually aware of such a re-
search project and had been called upon to pass judgment
on it, I would have judged it by the merit of the particular
project and not by which governmental agency was directly or
indirectly sponsoring the research. As far as I am concerned
the CIA is just as respectable as any other governmental
agency or private foundation ... I wonder whether most of
this concern about these research projects arises not out of
any ethical considerations but out of hostility in certain
circles toward anything done by the CIA whether openly or
covertly."
Our investigation thus far tends to confirm his insight.
We will keep you informed as further progress is made.
Your signature on the three letters proposed is requested.
STA
STA-
ST
Approved For Release 2004/06/29 :4CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050037-0