Mission: Mind Control (MK Ultra - CIA)

This 1979 ABC News documentary, produced by CNN and hosted by correspondent Paul Altmeyer, investigates the CIA's MKUltra program, a series of human experimentation projects conducted from 1953 to 1973 aimed at developing mind control techniques. Using declassified documents, congressional testimony from the 1975 Church Committee, and interviews with former participants including scientist Sidney Gottlieb and agency director Richard Helms, it details experiments involving LSD administration to unwitting subjects, sensory deprivation, hypnosis, electroshock, and psychological manipulation at universities, hospitals, and prisons across the United States and Canada. The program operated under 149 subprojects with a budget exceeding $10 million, often without informed consent, leading to documented cases of severe mental distress and at least one death. Most records were destroyed in 1973 on orders from Helms, though surviving files revealed collaborations with over 80 institutions.