Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Chairwoman of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired a high-profile House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, titled “Mind Control and Accountability: Uncovering the Truth of the CIA’s MKULTRA Experiments.” The session examined the CIA’s notorious Cold War-era program and its lasting erosion of public trust.
Luna opened by emphasizing the need for transparency, linking the hearing to earlier declassified files and programs like Project Artichoke, which allegedly involved covert drugging through fake vaccines or medical procedures.
MKUltra ran from 1953 to approximately 1973. It involved unconsented human experiments using LSD, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and psychological torture on unwitting Americans, including prisoners, mental health patients, and civilians, as well as subjects abroad. The program was funded by U.S. taxpayers and authorized at the highest levels of the CIA.
Witnesses included historian Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief (which details the life of CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb), investigative journalist Tom O’Neill, author of Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, and Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi, Ph.D., former senior program director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Ginexi focused on broader research ethics and issues of public trust.
A major focus was the deliberate destruction of evidence in 1973.
As CIA Director Richard Helms prepared to leave office, he ordered the destruction of MKUltra files. An official CIA document states: “Over my stated objectives, the MKULTRA files were destroyed by the order of DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] Mr. Helms shortly before his departure from office.”
During the hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna drew attention to the criminal destruction of records, stressing that the vast majority of MKULTRA files were deliberately kept from public view.
Helms personally instructed Dr. Sidney Gottlieb to destroy “all files pertaining to drug research and associated activities.” Four people spent an entire day tearing up and burning approximately 152 files. Gottlieb also had his personal papers destroyed. The head of the CIA’s own Records Center protested the destruction in writing but was overruled.
No accountability followed. Helms received only a $2,000 fine for lying to Congress on an unrelated matter and collected his government pension until his death. Gottlieb faced no prison time.
No victims received formal U.S. government compensation. As Luna and witnesses stressed, this constituted obstruction of justice and criminal destruction of federal records.
Much of what we know today survived by accident. In 1977, a FOIA request uncovered seven misfiled boxes that revealed 149 subprojects, involvement with 80 institutions, and 185 non-government researchers, along with significant CIA funding, including $375,000 for a hospital “safe house” used for unwitting subjects.
Historian Stephen Kinzer described MKUltra as “extreme medical torture.” He testified that Gottlieb operated with a de facto “license to kill,” using “expendables.” Kinzer emphasized cases like Frank Olson and warned of modern risks from advances in neuroscience and AI.
Investigative journalist Tom O’Neill noted that the 1977 congressional hearings misled the public by claiming MKULTRA was a “failure.” He pointed to documents showing the program’s goals of inducing trance states, amnesia, and programmed behavior. O’Neill detailed disturbing connections involving Dr. Louis Jolyon West, including West’s examination of Jack Ruby following the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald.
When asked whether Jack Ruby and Charles Manson were assets of the intelligence agencies, O’Neill replied:
“In my expert opinion, I’ve never been able to prove that Jack Ruby was an asset of the intelligence agencies. I believe this is something else. The Warren Commission investigation was led by Allen Dulles, the former CIA director who authorized and ran MKUltra. He was fired by President Kennedy. The liaison to the Commission for the CIA, the one who handled all the information going back and forth, was Richard Helms, who was a direct supervisor [of these programs]. They knew that Dr. West was capable of what they had paid him to do and what he had reported to them that he could do, including inducing mental disorders in people. That was never disclosed to the Commission, as far as anyone knows. So I believe that West was put in there to keep Jack Ruby from telling his story.”
O’Neill also referenced broader links involving CIA Directors Allen Dulles and Richard Helms to the Warren Commission, noting that “the CIA was deeply involved in shaping the official narrative.”
Lawmakers, including Rep. Tim Burchett, pressed witnesses on whether similar mind-control or behavioral manipulation techniques could still be in use today. The witnesses reported seeing no direct evidence of an active MKULTRA-style program, but noted that such methods have likely evolved alongside advances in technology.
O’Neill said he “couldn’t imagine” the agency simply stopped, while Kinzer highlighted how modern neuroscience and artificial intelligence could make such capabilities more feasible than ever. Burchett also inquired about potential connections to recent high-profile incidents, including the assassination attempt on former President Trump by Thomas Crooks and the killing of Charlie Kirk. Witnesses declined to speculate on specific individuals but left open the possibility that similar techniques could continue in new forms.
This hearing was the first major congressional revisit of MKUltra since the 1970s, shining new light on one of the darkest chapters in CIA history.
Rep. Luna and the witnesses condemned the MKULTRA experiments as crimes against humanity. They called for ending remaining redactions, full declassification, victim accountability, and safeguards against recurrence.
She has committed to further CIA follow-up, including examining newly discovered boxes of MKUltra-related files, and pledged that the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets would continue pushing for complete transparency.
