THINK ABOUTIT  SUMMARY:

Project Artichoke: The CIA’s Real “Road Show of Horrors”

Project/Group Name:    Project Artichoke (formerly Project BLUEBIRD)

Mission:  To develop offensive interrogation techniques and “total” mind control to the point where an individual would act against their own self-preservation.

Date Started:   August 20, 1951 (BLUEBIRD transitioned to ARTICHOKE).  Ended:  Operated independently for approximately 17 years beyond the start of MKULTRA (roughly into the early 1970s).

Who or Whom Started It:  CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), later involving the Security Research branch.

Part of what Government Agency:  CIA, with cooperation from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and FBI.

Location:  Fort Detrick, MD; Edgewood Arsenal, MD; and various “black sites” across Europe and Asia.

Special Features/Characteristics: 

• Offensive Application: Unlike the research-heavy MKULTRA, Artichoke was operational, meaning its techniques were actively used in the field.

• Chemical & Hypnotic Coercion: Focused on forced morphine addiction/withdrawal, hypnosis, and rapid amnesia induction.

• The “Olson Connection”: Linked to the death of Frank Olson and the “Artichoke Conference.”

Summary/Description:  Project Artichoke was the “traveling road show of horrors.” While MKULTRA was largely academic and distributed across universities (serving as a buffer), Artichoke was the CIA’s deep-black interrogation arm. A 1952 memo defines its goal: “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?” 

Related to:    Project BLUEBIRD (predecessor), MKULTRA (public distraction), Project Paperclip (Nazi scientist integration), and Operation Dormouse

Source:  H.P. Albarelli (A Terrible Mistake); Rockefeller Commission Report (1975); Richard Helms Memoranda.

Other Details:  (Operation Dormouse): In 1975, the CIA launched Operation Dormouse to shield Artichoke from Congressional scrutiny. By “offering up” the details of MKULTRA and Dr. Sidney Gottlieb to the media, the Agency successfully diverted attention away from Artichoke’s more pernicious activities. This move was reportedly coordinated between CIA General Counsel Lawrence Houston, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Cheney to avoid a “Pandora’s box” of legal and international atrocities.

“MK/ULTRA… pales in comparison. That it continues to receive the lion’s share of public outrage was a deliberately planned outcome code-named Dormouse.”

Apart from being the name of a vegetable, Artichoke or the Artichoke Project also is the name of a former CIA Mind Control Program. The name was only used for two years. Till 1951, it was called Project Bluebird. In 1953 it was succeeded by Project MkUltra

Project ARTICHOKE (also referred to as Operation ARTICHOKE) was a CIA project that researched interrogation methods and arose from Project BLUEBIRD on August 20, 1951, run by the CIA’s Office of Scientific Intelligence.[1] A memorandum by Richard Helms to CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles indicated Artichoke became Project MKULTRA on April 13, 1953.[2][not in citation given]

The project studied hypnosis, forced morphine addiction (and subsequent forced withdrawal), and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects.

ARTICHOKE was an offensive program of mind control 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 stated, “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, far worse than MKULTRA?