CIA brainwashing victims seek Canada court action

[Liberty Belle]

Note: I recall hearing once that Cheney was in charge of this program or had some involvement with it. Can anyone at DU provide links? - Liberty Belle


CIA brainwashing victims seek Canada court action By James Stairs


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Thursday January 18, 2007

By James Stairs, Montreal- In a case that sounds like science fiction, a Montreal court is deciding whether a class action lawsuit can be brought against the Canadian government on behalf of more than 250 psychiatric patients who were unwittingly subjected to radical experiments in the 1950s. The so-called MK-ULTRA tests were part of a secret mind-control programme funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Canadian government in the 1950s.

The Cold-War-era experiments, carried out by a Scottish doctor in Montreal, included forced isolation, induced-comas, electro-shock therapy and the use of hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD and paralysis-inducing narcotics.

Lawyers for Janine Huard, a 78-year-old great-grandmother, told a Montreal court last week that their client suffered for years as a result of Dr. Ewan Cameron's experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute, a psychiatric hospital based at Montreal's McGill University.

The experiments were part of a controversial secret CIA programme, aimed at uncovering techniques of mind control and led by Cameron, who died in 1967.

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/CIA_brainwashing_victims_seek_Canad_01182007.html

[stillcool]

1. jeezus...I had no idea there were this many victims...

The Sunday Times October 17, 2004

Brainwash victims win cash claims
Karin Goodwin
HUNDREDS of mentally ill patients who were subjected to barbaric CIA-funded brainwashing experiments by a Scottish doctor could be entitled to compensation following a landmark court ruling.
Doctor Ewan Cameron, who became one of the world’s leading psychiatrists, developed techniques used by Nazi scientists to wipe out the existing personalities of people in his care.
Cameron, who graduated from Glasgow University, was recruited by the CIA during the cold war while working at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
He carried out mind-control experiments using drugs such as LSD on hundreds of patients, but only 77 of them were awarded compensation.
Now a landmark ruling by a Federal Court judge in Montreal will allow more than 250 former patients, whose claims were rejected, to seek compensation.

It took two decades and the persistence of Joseph Rauh, the distinguished American civil liberties lawyer, to uncover what happened and secure compensation for some of Cameron’s victims.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1313808,00.html

[iverglas]

3. Joseph Rauh may have been a persistent lawyer

But it was the dedication of David Orlikow, husband of one of Cameron's victims, Velma Orlikow, Rauh's client, that was most important.

David was a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament, which fortunately gave the whole issue some visibility:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Orlikow
His wife Velma was treated, for depression I believe, using the CIA/Cameron techniques.

A 1981 NYTimes article about the out-of-court settlement:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9802E5D71738F935A25756C0A967948260
and from 1992:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E0CE7DD173AF93AA25752C1A964958260
(post edited to correct date of article and add quotation)

David Orlikow, a retired member of Parliament, whose now-deceased wife, Velma, was another subject, said she emerged from the treatment "really a disabled person, not physically but emotionally."

"There were days when she would do nothing and then be subject to unexplainable rages," Mr. Orlikow recalled. "She was a very intelligent person, but her ability to read was destroyed."

Mr. Orlikow initiated litigation in the United States against the C.I.A., recruiting the civil liberties lawyer Joseph L. Rauh to take his wife's case.

In October, 1988, the Justice Department announced an out-of-court settlement with Velma Orlikow and eight other victims, a total of $750,000. ...

A rundown of the MK-ULTRA project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-ULTRA

Unfortunately, since Velma's case was dealt with so long ago, there isn't much info on the net (and a lot of it is on sites that I hesitate to link to, but a google for "velma orlikow" "fifth estate" will find a transcript of the 1988 CBC program in which Velma and David Orlikow and Joseph Rauh and others were interviewed. Oh, well, here's one that's more readable than some of the others:
http://www.raven1.net/cameron.htm

(producer) Bernard Zuckerman:
Here you've got nine "little" Canadian victims taking on probably the most powerful institution in America, the CIA, and, these "little" Canadians, they win -- they get the CIA to settle and give them money and, in effect, an apology saying, "what we did is wrong."

[CHIMO]

2. MKULTRA

Senate held hearings in 1977.

Hope this helps to start your googling.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/MK-ULTRA