The U.S. Government Wanted a Truth Drug And Got a Chemical Lie Instead
It started with a promise: a chemical that could make anyone talk, spilling secrets without resistance or deception. What the U.S. got instead was confusion, contradiction, and a costly pharmacological dead end. A declassified report titled Development of Truth Drug...
From Brainwashing to Bombproof Memory: Inside the CIA’s Psychological War
When the CIA planned out its psychological warfare strategy in the 1950s, it wasn’t just exploring exotic drugs and hypnosis. It was engineering an entire operational ecosystem-custom labs, human test subjects, field schools, and behavioral modification programs...
Inside Project ARTICHOKE: The CIA’s Blueprint for Total Behavioral Control
What would it take to fully break a person’s will-without them ever realizing it happened? That was the question driving Project ARTICHOKE, a top-secret CIA research program detailed in a declassified 1952 memorandum. Unlike earlier efforts, this was no vague...
The CIA’s 1951 Tech Wishlist Reads Like a Blueprint for Mind Control
In 1951, the CIA quietly circulated a document that reads less like inter-agency correspondence and more like the pitch deck for a psychological weapons program. Titled simply Items of Special Interest, it outlines the Agency’s hunger for a chilling array of...