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Housewives of True Crime

Don’t Take Drinks from Strangers -Especially If They Work for the CIA

·53 min·5 clips
The CIA's MKUltra program aimed to create human robots for assassinations using LSD and psychological torture.
The episode begins with casual banter between hosts Tabitha Kane and Jenny about personal life, including sickness, wine-buying mishaps, and text message debacles. They transition into discussing MKUltra, introduced as a deep, dark rabbit hole involving LSD and mind control. Kane sets the historical context in the early 1950s Cold War, where the CIA feared Soviet brainwashing and launched MKUltra under director Allen Dulles. The goal was to develop truth serums, memory erasure, and Manchurian candidates for assassinations. Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA chemist, led experiments using LSD, purchasing the world supply for $240,000. Key projects included Operation Midnight Climax, where the CIA set up brothels in San Francisco and New York to spike men's drinks with LSD and observe them. Other experiments involved giving mental health patients in Kentucky LSD for up to 174 days straight and using drug-induced comas with recorded messages to erase personalities. The episode highlights specific cases, such as Frank Olson, a CIA scientist who died after being dosed with LSD, and Dr. Ewen Cameron, who conducted psychic driving experiments in Canada. It also mentions figures like mobster Whitey Bulger and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski in connection to MKUltra-like studies. Kane discusses the book 'Chaos' by Tom O'Neill, which links Charles Manson to MKUltra through psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West. The episode explains how MKUltra was exposed in the 1970s after Watergate, with 20,000 documents found despite CIA attempts to destroy records. Modern conspiracy theories are addressed, including celebrity mind control glitches seen on TikTok. The hosts conclude by polling listeners on whether such programs still exist and promote their Patreon for bonus content.

As heard by us

A conversational CIA nightmare that turns absurdity into dread.

This episode follows a grim stretch of CIA experimentation, where safehouses, one-way mirrors, martinis, and LSD fold into a story that grows steadily more disturbing.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a messy, funny, horrifying ride through CIA drug experiments, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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