Before MK-Ultra had a name, before LSD entered the agency’s toolbox, U.S. intelligence was already sketching out a method to collapse resistance and extract confessions-one chemically induced blackout at a time.
The document, simply titled "Interrogation", offers a rare glimpse into the early conceptual architecture of the CIA’s drug interrogation program.
Sparse, chaotic, and half-handwritten, it nonetheless outlines a clear premise: train a cadre of operatives to exploit altered states of consciousness to compel cooperation-without leaving physical evidence.
The objective was never punishment.
It was control.
🧪 Drug-Induced Isolation and Submission
The report discusses the use of pharmacological agents to move a subject from a "conscious, resistant" state to a "subconscious isolation" state-described as the ideal psychological position for forced disclosure.
"Drugs… designed to produce a state of subconscious isolation… will be utilized to reduce resistance."
It’s not clear which specific compounds were being tested, but the language suggests a focus on:
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Memory suppression
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Disorientation
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Diminished will
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Heightened suggestibility
The process wasn’t casual. It required precision.
🎓 Training the Drug Interrogators
One section proposes that operatives be sent to universities to study pharmacology and clinical psychology, returning with enough technical expertise to conduct interrogations themselves.
"To determine the number of individuals qualified to receive future training in the field of drug interrogation… they should be sent to U.S. universities."
The goal wasn’t just to deploy drugs-it was to build a long-term in-house capability for behavioral disruption and information extraction.
🧠 Consciousness as a Battleground
The underlying model here is not of pain or brute force. It’s of psychological bypass-rendering the subject unable to filter or resist through conventional willpower.
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No screaming
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No physical coercion
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Just a quiet chemical descent into compliance
The interrogation was meant to feel dreamlike. The memory of it was meant to disappear.
📜 Precursors to the ARTICHOKE and MK-Ultra Programs
Although undated, the document appears to predate the formal MK-Ultra framework and shares conceptual DNA with Project ARTICHOKE-the CIA’s effort to weaponize hypnosis, amnesia, and narcotics.
It reflects a pre-operational phase: field notes before funding.
Vision before protocol.
Still, the intention is unmistakable.
"Information obtained… will be applied to the operational instruction of selected personnel."
This wasn’t an idea.
It was an early doctrine.
🕳️ The Quiet Horror of Planning
What makes this document striking isn’t what it says-but how casually it says i
. There’s no moral debate.
No legal analysis.
No policy framework.
Just handwritten arrows, bullet points, and underlined sentences describing how to chemically reduce a person into a source of usable intelligence.
It reads like a lab memo.
It was meant to be policy.
