May 22, 2025 | CIA/FBI/NSA Files
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...
May 22, 2025 | CIA/FBI/NSA Files
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...
May 22, 2025 | CIA/FBI/NSA Files
A declassified CIA training film reveals just how deep U.S. intelligence once ventured into the realm of hypnosis-based mind control-not as science fiction, but as standard operating procedure. "Mary Jones was made to carry out her surreptitious and illegal activity...
May 21, 2025 | CIA/FBI/NSA Files
A declassified CIA document lays bare the disturbing logistics behind Project ARTICHOKE-a secret program that combined chemical, psychological, and environmental controls to extract confessions and compliance from unwilling subjects. "The ideal situation would be to...
May 7, 2025 | CIA/FBI/NSA Files
In the spring of 2002, one of the CIA’s most high-value captures was bleeding out in a safe house in Pakistan. His name was Abu Zubaydah - an al-Qa’ida operations planner, logistics chief, and one-time lieutenant to Osama bin Laden. According to a once-secret...