Tuesday, August 7, 2007

A POLICY THAT GUARANTEED NO JUSTICE FOR MKULTRA VICTIMS

CIA DIRECTOR STANSFIELD TURNER'S LETTER TO SENATOR INOUYE, CHAIRMAN SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE http://healthycitizens.googlepages.com/stansfieldturnerletter.pdf
THE CIA GENERAL COUNSEL'S LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY http://healthycitizens.googlepages.com/ciageneralcounselslettertojohnshopki.pdf

In 1994, at the time of the exposure of the radiation testing program, U.S. News And World Reports published an article about the victims of previous programs: "MKULTRA. Most victims have never been informed by the government of the nature of the experiments they were subjected to or, in some cases, even fact that they were subjects. In a 1977 hearing, then CIA director Stansfield Turner said he found the experiments 'abhorrent' and promised that the CIA would find and notify the people used in the tests. Turner last week insisted that 'they found everyone they possibly could find.' But internal memos and depositions taken from CIA officials in a lawsuit against the agency in the 1980s reveal that of the hundreds of experimental subjects used in the CIA's mind-control program, code-named MKULTRA, only 14 were ever notified and only one was compensated -- for $15,000." http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/940124/archive_012286.htm

This policy is addressed in CIA Director Stansfield Turner's letter to Senator Inouye and the CIA General Counsel's letter to the President of Johns Hopkins University. In his letter to Senator Inouye, Stansfield Turner wrote, "I believe we all have a moral obligation to these researchers and institutions to protect them from any unjustified embarrassment or damage to their reputations which revelation of their identities might bring. In addition, I have a legal obligation under the Privacy Act not to publicly disclose the names of he individual resarchers without their consent." The fact is, as a consequence of this policy, the MKULTRA programs could continue if no one could identify the victims, the universities or the researchers. Despite Presidential commissions, Senate and House hearings, the United States has never attempted to locate, compensate, heal and rehabilitate victims.