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One who digs a pit shall fall therein. Kohelet 10:8 |
Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist probably best known for his involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency's mind control program MKULTRA.
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Gottlieb was born in the Bronx under the name Joseph Scheider. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. A stutterer from childhood, Gottlieb got a master's degree in speech therapy. He also had a club foot. It kept him out of World War II, but it did not stop him from practicing folk dancing, a lifelong passion.
In 1951, Gottlieb joined the Central Intelligence Agency. As a poison expert, he headed the chemical division of the Technical Services Staff (TSS). Gottlieb became known as the "Black Sorcerer" and the "Dirty Trickster." He supervised preparations of lethal poisons and experiments in mind control.
In April 1953 Sidney Gottlieb headed the secret Project MKULTRA which was activated on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles. Gottlieb was known for administration of LSD and other psycho-active drugs to unwitting subjects and for financing psychiatric research and development of "techniques that would crush the human psyche to the point that it would admit anything." He sponsored physicians such as Ewen Cameron and Harris Isbell in controversial psychiatric research that used unwitting humans as guinea pigs. Many people suffered serious adverse effects from research financed by Gottlieb and the Rockefeller Foundation.
In March 1960, under The Cuban Project, a CIA plan approved by President Eisenhower and under the direction of CIA Directorate for Plans, Richard M. Bissell, Gottlieb came up with ideas to spray Fidel Castro's television studio with LSD and to saturate Castro's shoes with thallium so that the hair of his beard would fall out. Gottlieb also hatched schemes to assassinate Castro, including the use of a poisoned cigar, a poisoned wetsuit, an exploding conch shell, and a poisonous fountain pen.
He also tried to have Iraq's General Abdul Karim Qassim's handkerchief contaminated with botulinum. Less known was an operation within the CIA's Phoenix Program in Vietnam where a team of CIA psychologists performed mind control experiments on NLF suspects being detained at Bien Hoa Prison outside of Saigon.
Gottlieb is said to have played a role in funding investigation into paranormal phenomena, including remote viewing.
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb also played a role in the CIA's attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo. In the summer of 1960, Gottlieb transported "toxic biological materials" to the CIA station in the Congo, though a military coup deposed the Prime Minister before agents could deliver the virus.
He retired from the CIA in 1972, stating at the time that he did not believe his work had been effective. He nonetheless accepted a Distinguished Intelligence Medal from the U.S. government. In retirement, he and his wife spent 18 months running a leper hospital in India and he spent his final years looking after the dying at a hospice. He died in Washington DC.
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