This is the untold true story of LSD and the men who tried to control it.
An amazing tale, it is part comedy, part tragedy, part history, and part science fiction.
By arrogance and accident, the CIA gave LSD to the kids of America and ignited the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
This story has never been told.
It starts in 1951 with the dreams of a CIA scientist. His name was Sydney Gottlieb.
He was a true believer and a fighter of secret wars.
He wanted to break and control the minds of men.
Among his secret fraternity, he was called “The Black Sorcerer.”
When he launched the Agency’s super-secret mind control program MK-ULTRA, Gottlieb and his bosses had one goal:
Stop the spread of Communism by any means necessary.
To advance this work, the CIA recruited two Nazi doctors from the Reich’s biological weapons program.
Dr. Kurt Blome - Leader SS Division Biological Weapons
Dr. Walter Schreiber ~ Surgeon General of the Third Reich
These men and Gottlieb shared a morally compromised zeal for their missions.
For the CIA’s mind control ambitions, LSD was the Holy Grail.
It was the secret molecule that was going to unlock the “universe.”
Instead of gaining control of minds, however, Gottlieb lost control of his favorite weapon.
LSD spread to student “guinea pigs” like Ken Kesey, who took it in university experiments secretly sponsored by the CIA.
Professor Timothy Leary
Jerry Garcia & Carolyn Adams (Garcia)
And then something very, very unexpected happened:
LSD escaped the CIA labs.
Among the “guinea pigs,” LSD enflamed a generational revolt unlike any in American history.
It fueled a movement dedicated to destroying what the CIA defended and held dear.
LSD caused commonplace, youthful rebellion to roar into a cultural firestorm.
Without LSD, the CIA, and Sidney Gottlieb, the 60s would have been a far less combustible decade.
“We must always remember to thank the CIA. They introduced LSD to control people, and what they gave us was freedom.” John Lennon
Until now, no one has told this story—staggering in its implications.
We begin in 1977, when a young journalist uncovers seven lost boxes of secret CIA documents that reveal MK-ULTRA.
ABC Newsroom
John Marks - Author & Journalist (1977)
From there, we reveal that:
Gottlieb conducted “terminal” interrogations in Japan, Korea, and Germany using various drugs.
If they did not die during interrogation, these prisoners were executed.
We show that:
CIA agents hired prostitutes to dose unsuspecting Americans at safe houses in New York and San Francisco.
Watching through one-way mirrors as the unwitting johns reacted to the LSD.
Agent George White - Head of Operation Midnight Climax
We document for the first time that:
A US doctor sponsored by the CIA gave patients LSD and then lobotomized them.
Black prisoners in Kentucky were kept tripping for 77 days as part of an Agency funded experiment.
We reveal that:
Former OSS agent “Cpt.” Al Hubbard dispensed LSD to the social elite of America.
Al Hubbard - The “Johnny Appleseed” of LSD
Including politicians, priests, and business titans like conservative media mogul Henry Luce and his wife Claire.
We careen from the CIA to the Merry Pranksters…
Richard Helms - Co-Architect of MK-ULTRA and future DCI
CIA Headquarters - Langley, Virginia
CIA Top Secret Project Artichoke
The Merry Pranksters “Further” bus on its 1964 cross country trip.
Pranksters’ final “graduation” Acid Test gathering.
We dash between Harvard University and the international LSD gang The Brotherhood of Eternal Love…
Richard Alpert (Ram Das) & Timothy Leary
Richard Alpert & Ralph Metzner
Mystic Arts World Store - South Laguna Beach
Brotherhood wanted poster 1967.
We charge from the FBI to the Weathermen.
J. Edgar Hoover - Director of the FBI
Bernardine Dohrn - Founding member of the Weathermen Underground
Into this astonishing drama, we bring together the most unlikely cast of characters:
Aldous Huxley, Henry and Claire Luce, Cary Grant, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Hunter S.Thompson…
Jerry Garcia, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, as well as CIA Director Richard Helms, among others.
And we crescendo in 1969:
When the the Hells Angels stab and stomp a young black man to death in front of the Rolling Stones and 400,000 fans…
And “acid eater” Charles Manson and his “family” are arrested.
Unleashed by mistake, LSD forever re-shaped American culture in ways the Agency never wanted.
This is a story that the CIA wanted dead.
In 1973, out-going CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA documents destroyed.
To his dismay, a few boxes were forgotten.
In this show, we will finally tell the whole story of LSD.
And at a time when the molecule is again under scientific review for curing depression, addiction, and PTSD.
Where will this new zeal lead? Another revolution?
This project is based on the book, ACID DREAMS: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond.
Martin A. Lee, one of the authors, is also a consultant on the show.
Other Consultants Include:
Carolyn Garcia - Also known as Mountain Girl, Carolyn is a former Merry Prankster and former wife of Jerry Garcia. She was at the epicenter of the 60s psychedelic movement.
Robert “Tim” Scully - An outlaw LSD chemist until 1967, his LSD formulation, dubbed "Orange Sunshine,” is considered the best LSD ever produced. He served ten years in prison for LSD manufacturing and sales.
