The Surviving MKULTRA Archive (1977) — Finance Folders, No Operational Records
nodeIntelligence & Surveillance
Everything the public knows about MKULTRA comes from the accounts department, and it survived by a filing error nobody can explain.
Who they are
The roughly 20,000 surviving MKULTRA documents, described to the Senate in 1977 by CIA director Stansfield Turner.
What they do
Turner: 'the recovered folders are finance folders' — vouchers, accountings, approvals for advance of funds.
How it works
In his words they are 'not very informative as to the nature of the activities that were undertaken', and 'the recovered material does not include status reports or other documents relating to operational considerations'. They survived because in 1970 somebody filed them with the budget office instead of the project files: 'The reason for this departure from normal procedure is not known.' That is why they escaped the 1973 destruction and why the 1975 Senate search missed them — 'The retired records of the Budget and Fiscal Section of the Branch responsible for such work were not searched.'
Why it matters
The surviving archive can tell you who was paid and out of which budget. It is not the kind of record that would say what was done to a person, because that kind was destroyed.
The engine's record — word for word
[Report #191] What the public record of MKULTRA physically consists of, described by the Director of Central Intelligence. Admiral Stansfield Turner to the Senate, 3 August 1977, verbatim: 'it is important to realize that the recovered folders are finance folders. The bulk of the material in them consists of approvals for advance of funds, vouchers, accountings, and the like - most of which are not very informative as to the nature of the activities that were undertaken. Occasional project proposals or memoranda commenting on some aspect of a subproject are scattered throughout this material. In general, however, the recovered material does not include status reports or other documents relating to operational considerations or progress in the various subprojects.' On why it survived: 'financial papers associated with sensitive projects such as MKULTRA were normally maintained by the Branch itself under the project file, not by the Budget and Fiscal Section. In the case at hand, however, the newly located material was sent to the Retired Records Center in 1970 by the Budget and Fiscal Section as part of its own retired holdings. The reason for this departure from normal procedure is not known. As a result of it, however, the material escaped retrieval and destruction in 1973 by the then-retiring Director of the Office as well as discovery in 1975 by CIA officials responding to Senate investigators.' On why the Church Committee missed it: 'The retired records of the Budget and Fiscal Section of the Branch responsible for such work were not searched.' Contents per Turner: 149 subprojects, two boxes of miscellaneous papers including audit reports from 'cut-out' funding mechanisms, and 33 further subprojects unrelated to behavioural work. Identities recovered: '185 non-government researchers and assistants' and '80 institutions... 44 colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 penal institutions.' The Senate on its own prior position: 'We believed that the record, incomplete as it was, was as complete as it was going to be. Then one individual, through a Freedom of Information request, accomplished what two U.S. Senate committees could not.'
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