Today in Labor History April 13, 1953: CIA Director Allen Dulles launched the MKUltra mind control program. The program ran from 1953 to 1973. It involved giving human subjects LSD and other drugs, often without their knowledge. Then, researchers would try to “weaken” their minds and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. Over 7,000 U.S. war veterans were unwitting test subjects, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians. The program was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, recruited many of these Nazi torturers in the wake of World War II to exploit their knowledge and research. MKUltra was headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who later devised plans to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar, and saturating his shoes with radioactive thallium to make his beard fall out. He also tried to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo, with poison. Several well-known liberals and radicals knowingly participated in MKUltra and its OSS predecessors, either as test subjects (e.g., Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hunter), or as researchers (e.g., anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson). Others who have been alleged to have been victims or volunteers include Sirhan Sirhan, Ted Kaczyinski, Charles Manson, and Whitey Bulger.
For a really fascinating look at Margaret Mead's and Gregory Bateson’s exploration with hallucinogens and their connection to federal spy agencies, check out the recent book, Tripping on Utopia, by Benjamin Breen. And for a truly amazing documentary on the 1961 CIA-supported coup in Congo, check out the 2024 documentary, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.” But the film is really about so much more than the coup. It covers Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations in the early 1960s; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #cia #mindcontrol #torture #lsd #mkultra #castro #nazis #oss #allenginsberg #lumumba #malcolmx #coltrane #jazz #imperialism #kenkesey #margaretmead #charlesmanson #mescaline #castro #soviet #coldwar #books #nonfiction #ussr #communism #film #documentary @bookstadon
Poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) attended the first Acid Test organized by Ken Kesey (1935-2001) on 27 November 1965. At the Acid Test on 12 February 1966, Wavy Gravy (b. 1936) dubbed the punch "electric Kool-Aid", inspiring the title of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (1968), by Tom Wolfe (1930-2018). Kool-Aid
Review: New biography of Larry McMurtry reveals much about elusive writer’s life
David Streitfeld’s “Western Star” lets lovers of McMurtry’s work get to know the Texas author.
#Literature #LarryMcMurtry #JoyceSáenzHarris #Texas #LonesomeDove #WesternStar #Biography #Bookstodon #TomWolfe #DavidStreitfield #ElectricKoolAidAcidTest #KenKesey #ArcherCity
“I didn’t want to have to avoid answering questions about what happened. I didn’t want the questions.” — Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
#KenKesey #QOTD #Quotation #Quote #Questions #Accountability
https://yahooeysblog.wordpress.com/2026/02/16/quote-of-the-day-5431/
“That’s the one thing that everybody in the world can do, ain’t it, Willard? is die … living is the hassle.” — Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
#QOTD #KenKesey #Quote #Living #Quotation #Dying
https://yahooeysblog.wordpress.com/2026/01/15/quote-of-the-day-5401/
“Can I possibly go back and wrest from my past some remnant of a better beginning? Some start toward a better scene?” — Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
#QOTD #KenKesey #Quotation #Reboot #Quote #StartOver
https://yahooeysblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/04/quote-of-the-day-5359/
"50 years after ‘Cuckoo’s Nest,’ Oregonians reflect on a film that changed mental health conversations"
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/19/cuckoos-nest-film-release-50-anniversary/
"The Salem-filmed classic premiered in the U.S. on Nov. 19, 1975. To mark its anniversary, three Oregonians revisit its history and impact."
Luke Trevorrow
MikeDunnAuthor
Andrew Shields
Ulrich Plate
Pablonius Monk 🇺🇦
Yahooey
Ahimsa
dounowhoiam.bsky.social