What is Project Artichoke?

photorandy2023

1 year ago

This is a new series of articles where I explain what various terms, catch phrases, and various other confusing topics, and many secret government projects and agencies are and do. If there are any subjects that the reader is interested in learning about, please put them in the comment section.

Project Artichoke (also referred to as Operation Artichoke) was a project developed and enacted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the purpose of researching methods of interrogation. Project Artichoke was succeeded by Project MKUltra, which began in 1953.

Initially known as Project Bluebird, Project Artichoke officially arose on August 20, 1951, and was operated by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence. The primary goal of Project Artichoke was to determine whether a person could be involuntarily made to perform an act of attempted assassination. The project also studied the effects of mind control and hypnosis, forced addiction to (and subsequent withdrawal from) morphine, and other chemicals, including LSD, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in victims.

Description

Project Artichoke was a mind control program that gathered information together with the intelligence divisions of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and FBI. In addition, the scope of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that asked, “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?”

Project Artichoke was the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret code name for carrying out in-house and overseas experiments using LSD, hypnosis and total isolation as forms of physiological harassment for special interrogations on human subjects. At first agents used cocaine, marijuana, heroin, peyote and mescaline, but they increasingly saw LSD as the most promising drug. The subjects who left this project were fogged with amnesia, resulting in faulty and vague memories of the experience. In 1952, unknowing CIA agents were secretly drugged to determine the drug’s effects on unsuspecting people. One record states that an agent was kept on LSD for 77 days.

Artichoke researched the potential of dengue fever and other diseases. A declassified Artichoke memo read: “Not all viruses have to be lethal… the objective includes those that act as short-term and long-term incapacitating agents.”

The CIA disputed which department would take over the operation. Finally, it was decided that an agent from the CIA research staff, former U.S. Army brigadier general Paul F. Gaynor, would oversee it. The CIA sought to establish control over what it perceived as the “weaker” and “less intelligent” segments of society, or for potential agents, defectors, refugees, prisoners of war and others. A CIA report states that if hypnosis succeeded, assassins could be created to assassinate “a prominent [redacted] politician or if necessary, an American official.” The overseas operations took place in locations throughout Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Philippines. Teams were assembled to manage these operations and they were told to “conduct at the overseas bases operational experiments utilizing an alien as a subject.”

Document Friday: Project ARTICHOKE, or the CIA Attempt to Create an Unwitting Assassin Through Hypnosis

The 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate –based on Richard Condon’s 1959 novel– portrays an American soldier who is hypnotized by Communists and trained to assassinate American officials on command. This 22 January 1954 CIA memo shows that the Agency also pondered using hypnotized assassination. The report’s central question was, “Can an individual of [redacted] descent be made to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE?” According to a subsequent CIA report, “ARTICHOKE is the Agency cryptonym for the study and/or use of ‘special’ interrogation methods that have been known to include the use of drugs and chemicals, hypnosis, and ‘total isolation,’ a form of psychological harassment.”

Later, the document stipulated that this assassination attempt would be “against a prominent [redacted] politician or if necessary, against an American official.” After “American official” there was a hand written asterisk. At the end of the document, next to another handwritten asterisk, the words “simulated only” were handwritten.

According to the memo, CIA operatives would test this theory on a foreign national (his country of origin is redacted) who was once an Agency asset, but had since stopped cooperating. The Agency’s plan deserves to be quoted verbatim:

“Access to the SUBJECT would be extremely limited, probably limited to a single social meeting. Because the SUBJECT is a heavy drinker, it was proposed that the individual could be surreptitiously drugged through the medium of an alcoholic cocktail at a social party, ARTICHOKE [presumably, hypnosis] applied and the SUBJECT induced to perform the act of attempted assassination at some later date. All the above was to be accomplished at one involuntary uncontrolled social meeting. After the act of attempted assassination was performed, it was assumed that the SUBJECT would be taken into custody by the [redacted] Government and thereby ‘disposed of.’ …Whether the proposed act of attempted assassination was carried out or not by the SUBJECT was of no great significance in relation to the overall project.”

Wow. Who needs Hollywood when you can read declassified CIA documents?

The report’s conclusion stated that despite the elaborate setup, a hypnotized assassination “probably” could not be undertaken because:

The subject would be involuntary and unwitting.
Access to the subject was strictly limited to social engagements.
And the real kicker: Hypnotism actually provided “[no] or, at the very most, very limited physical control or custody of the subject.” It turns out, brainwashing someone to commit an assassination is trickier than it appears in Frank Sinatra and Denzel Washington films.

Despite these limitations, the report still stressed that a “crash course” could be possible. If headquarters provided greater access to operational plans and gave the order, “the ARTICHOKE Team would undertake the problem in spite of the operational limitations.” A final, handwritten notation at the end of the document reiterated, “This would be made available when and if required.”

Project Artichoke

By Jason Roberts|February 14th, 2022|Dark Distractions

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When choosing topics for Dark Distractions, I often find myself desensitized to my research, especially given our current level of dystopian malaise. However, every now and then, even I have to stop and ask, WTF? Project ARTICHOKE qualifies for that query.

In a CIA memo dated January 1952, the agency posed a chilling question: “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against the fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?” While the ultimate answer remains classified, the mere fact that such a question was asked is unsettling enough.

Project ARTICHOKE was launched in August 1951 by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence and coordinated with elements of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and FBI. The goal—using mind control as the method—was to create assassins from the “weaker and less intelligent” segments of society, as well as from foreign agents, POWs, defectors, and refugees.

To achieve this, the CIA experimented on its own agents, using an arsenal of drugs, including morphine, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, peyote, mescaline, and LSD. These substances were paired with extreme isolation, subversive interrogation tactics, and hypnosis. Of all the techniques tested, LSD yielded the most promising results. Subjects were often dosed without their knowledge, allowing their reactions to be observed in real time. Some agents were kept in a drug-induced haze for months, emerging with only foggy recollections of their experiences.

But the project wasn’t limited to drugs and hypnosis. The CIA also studied biological agents, including malaria and dengue fever, for their potential to incapacitate subjects both short- and long-term. Imagine suffering from dysentery while unknowingly being treated with LSD and cocaine, all while undergoing psychological torment, hypnotic suggestions, and relentless sleep deprivation. That was a day in the life of Project ARTICHOKE.

Initial experiments were conducted domestically, primarily on CIA personnel. The results remain classified, but they were encouraging enough to move forward with field testing. This phase took place overseas, spanning Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. Subjects were to be procured from “alien” populations, and while details remain redacted, considering the project’s objective—developing “zombie” assassins—the implications are deeply disturbing.

The true extent of ARTICHOKE’s success is buried beneath redacted documents and vague memoranda. But one thing is clear: the project ended in 1953, only to be replaced by its infamous successor—MK Ultra

Brainwashed assassins have long been a staple of spy novels and Hollywood thrillers like The Manchurian Candidate (1962), but are they real? And more importantly, would we even know if they were? Declassified documents confirm that the CIA spent decades and untold millions in black-budget funding researching the possibility of creating mind-controlled killers. It would be naïve to assume they found nothing.

So, what would a real-life ARTICHOKE assassin look like? Based on the project’s methods, we’d expect a lone gunman, likely exhibiting cognitive issues such as mania, paranoia, or some other psychological dysfunction that could explain their behavior. This individual would likely have no formal connection to intelligence agencies but could be an immigrant, foreign national, religious or political dissident, or extremist—someone whose motives could be conveniently framed by authorities. In short, the ideal candidate would be a radicalized, unstable individual—one who, following their crime, would be publicly written off as either insane or a fanatic.

Sound familiar?

Historically, a few names fit this profile. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and Sirhan Sirhan—all tied to the Kennedy assassinations—are the most infamous examples. James Earl Ray’s alleged involvement in a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr. has also drawn speculation. Then there’s John Patler, who assassinated George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, in 1967. More recently, Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon in 1980, and John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, fit the textbook definition of what Project ARTICHOKE sought to create.

The lone, mentally unstable attacker with murky motives has become a recurring archetype in modern tragedies. Consider Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter who claimed to hear voices; Esteban Santiago, who said the government was controlling his mind before opening fire at Fort Lauderdale Airport. Then there is Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024. With no clear ideology, no criminal record, and an abrupt act of political violence, his case mirrors the characteristics of previous lone gunmen. Whether coincidence or something more sinister, the specter of Artichoke lingers.

Sure, these theories might sound like recycled conspiracy fodder, but that’s exactly the point. I’m not saying the CIA orchestrated these assassinations—but if they did, this is what it would look like. And it would fit neatly within the framework of their own highly focused, extremely well-funded, and disturbingly persistent research.

Resources

en.wikipedia.org, “Project Artichoke.” By Wikipedia Editors; unredacted.com, “Document Friday: Project ARTICHOKE, or the CIA Attempt to Create an Unwitting Assassin Through Hypnosis.” By Nate Jones; http://www.paperlessarchives.com, “CIA Files: Operation Artichoke.”; jasonrobertsonline.com, ‘ Project Artichoke.” By Jason Roberts;

Description

Project Artichoke

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