MKUltra Subproject 3

Subproject 3 dealt with the secret giving of LSD to people who did not know they were taking it. At the hearing, Admiral Turner agreed with this description. Senator Inouye called it "the surreptitious administration of LSD on unwitting persons."

The timing was a concern for the committee. In 1954 the Director of Central Intelligence had already criticized the same TSS officials. That was after an unwitting LSD test on Dr. Frank Olson, who later took his own life. Yet the senators said the same people ran Subproject 3, doing the same kind of thing. The testing did not stop right after Olson's death. According to the documents, it went on for a number of years. Admiral Turner said he could not explain how that was allowed to continue.

Later documents show Subproject 3 also set up and ran physical facilities. These were used for the "realistic testing" of certain research items. A follow-up job, Subproject 16, was created to keep paying for those same facilities. A 1977 letter in the record confirms that no agency employee was ever fired over taking part in Subproject 3.