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From 1955 to 1975, the US Army used its own soldiers as human guinea pigs in research involving powerful, mind-altering drugs. Told through exclusive footage and first-hand accounts, this is the true story of one of the darkest chapters in US history.
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00:00:01You feel the effects of the agent?
00:00:06Everything's moving.
00:00:19They had no idea what the drug was going to do to us.
00:00:24They just moved the monkey out of the way
00:00:26and put me in there behind him.
00:00:28They hammered it into us.
00:00:30You cannot tell anybody about what you saw
00:00:32or what you went through, including your family.
00:00:36This is Cold War,
00:00:37and that's when I was assigned.
00:00:40Cold War was at its height.
00:00:44The mission at Edgewood was to find a drug
00:00:50that would produce incapacitation
00:00:54to decrease the enemy's ability to perform
00:00:57without killing them.
00:01:01Where are you, David?
00:01:03Do you know where you are?
00:01:06Can you say anything, David?
00:01:09Ketram didn't believe anyone got hurt.
00:01:13He went to the deathbed saying the same thing.
00:01:16Yeah.
00:01:17That it was a lie.
00:01:18I have hallucinations almost every night.
00:01:21Feel it.
00:01:22Weeper, weeper, weeper!
00:01:24And it's gone on since Edgewood.
00:01:26The excerpts you have seen were intended to demonstrate...
00:01:29I've got regrets about a number of things I've done.
00:01:33I've done that would not apply to the work I did at Edgewood.
00:01:37I thought I did a pretty good job with that.
00:01:46The test participants received the incapacitating agent by inhalation.
00:01:51A low dose of agent was fed into the mixing bowl.
00:01:54This is a story of one of the darkest and most bizarre chapters of recent history.
00:02:00Borderline hallucinations will come late in the experiment.
00:02:03One that the U.S. government and military would rather not be told.
00:02:07For two decades, secret human experiments were performed on our own soldiers with the goal
00:02:16to weaponize mind-altering drugs.
00:02:20But what's most shocking is that the soldiers involved in these experiments believe the military
00:02:26is covering up what really happened at Edgewood Arsenal.
00:02:33The whole thing is just so criminal.
00:02:36So criminal that they did to their own soldiers
00:02:42that somebody needs to be held accountable.
00:02:49As an investigative journalist and a former White House correspondent,
00:02:53I have seen corruption and cover-ups at the highest levels.
00:02:57And I've always tried to bring accountability to our government through my reporting.
00:03:02To see just how deep the rabbit hole goes,
00:03:05I've assembled a team,
00:03:07including fellow investigative journalist Jasper Craven
00:03:10and Lorraine Boissanel,
00:03:12government archival researchers Kai Baylor and Rick Ramirez,
00:03:17and chemical warfare historian Reed Kirby.
00:03:20Our investigation will take a 360-degree approach.
00:03:25We'll trace the 20-year timeline of the Edgewood experiments
00:03:29through one's highly classified documents and films.
00:03:34Experiencing hallucinations for a total...
00:03:36And take a deep dive into the human trials of these potent chemical agents
00:03:40through the first-hand accounts from the test subjects themselves.
00:03:46No one, and I mean no one,
00:03:51have I ever talked to about this.
00:03:56But the key that may unlock Edgewood's most closely guarded secrets
00:04:00comes from the mastermind of the program itself,
00:04:04Dr. James Ketchum.
00:04:06Through an exclusive, never-before-seen interview recorded just before his death,
00:04:11we'll piece together what really happened at Edgewood
00:04:14and pressure test the soldiers' claim
00:04:17that it wasn't just the army who was experimenting on them,
00:04:20that darker forces were at play,
00:04:23which the government has been covering up for decades.
00:04:27At least eight Nazi scientists were at Edgewood.
00:04:32These were Hitler's favorite chemists in Nazi Germany.
00:04:35And the CIA was involved.
00:04:38They were actually used to experiment on us,
00:04:41trying to brainwash people, which the CIA was interested in.
00:04:46But all the records were destroyed.
00:04:48And who knows whether they're still doing it or not.
00:04:51You don't condone that, do you?
00:04:54Destruction of records?
00:04:56Yes.
00:04:56Not generally.
00:04:58You may have heard of Edgewood,
00:05:00but you've never heard the story like this.
00:05:18Edgewood Arsenal has been America's research center
00:05:20for chemical warfare for over a century.
00:05:24Here, scientists developed, manufactured,
00:05:27and tested some of the most lethal chemical agents
00:05:31the world has ever known.
00:05:37But after World War II,
00:05:39Edgewood Arsenal began research
00:05:41into new types of non-lethal agents.
00:05:53Around 1951,
00:05:54the Army Chemical Center at Edgewood
00:05:56had a crash program
00:05:58to develop an incapacitating psychochemical
00:06:01that would have temporary paralysis
00:06:03without killing an enemy soldier.
00:06:06But at the same time,
00:06:08there was a revolution in pharmacology
00:06:11for treating psychiatric disorders.
00:06:13Because of that,
00:06:15the Army Chemical Center got involved
00:06:17in seeing if the ill effects of those drugs,
00:06:20the side effects that make pharmaceuticals unsuitable,
00:06:22might make them useful as a weapon.
00:06:25In the search for incapacitating agents,
00:06:28the chemical warfare laboratories
00:06:30are investigating a great many chemical compounds.
00:06:33There's something in here.
00:06:35They're looking at a survey of different compounds,
00:06:38so things that produce anxiety,
00:06:40hallucinations, and psychoses.
00:06:42Correct.
00:06:43So they tested as many different chemicals
00:06:46as they could with animals
00:06:47to see which ones were most effective
00:06:49and promising candidates.
00:06:52In laboratory experiments,
00:06:54a normal cat displays
00:06:56the typical hunter instinct toward a mouse.
00:07:00Minute quantity of lysergic acid diethylamide
00:07:03is administered in aerosol form.
00:07:07Over 250 different drugs
00:07:10and chemical compounds
00:07:11were tested at Edgewood.
00:07:12But the hallucinogenic effects
00:07:14of lysergic acid diethylamide,
00:07:16or LSD,
00:07:18showed the greatest potential
00:07:20in the search for an ideal incapacitating agent.
00:07:24The effects of the psychochemical
00:07:26become apparent.
00:07:29The cat is no longer interested
00:07:31in catching the mouse,
00:07:33and in fact appears to be afraid of it.
00:07:39So I'm guessing that
00:07:41having to test on humans
00:07:42is partly because you need to know
00:07:44what the experience is like in a human brain,
00:07:46and that's not really something an animal can convey.
00:07:49Absolutely.
00:07:50Like, animal testing
00:07:51would be the lead up to that point,
00:07:53and then when you have something
00:07:54you think is a solid candidate,
00:07:56then you'd want to do human testing
00:07:58to confirm that it would be a usable weapon.
00:08:08I was a young, naive soldier
00:08:11straight out of the tobacco fields
00:08:13of North Carolina.
00:08:15I saw flyers about going
00:08:17on this temporary duty project.
00:08:21It was for medical research volunteers.
00:08:25Take your seat, man.
00:08:26They had a program
00:08:28at our theater on the base,
00:08:30and I went to see what it was about.
00:08:34The guy got up and gave us a talk,
00:08:36said, you're going to be testing Army equipment.
00:08:38You know, at the other volunteer bases,
00:08:40testing a gas mask, boots, or clothing.
00:08:46And a whole bunch of good stuff on it
00:08:48about, you know, no KP, no guard duty,
00:08:51and every weekend off,
00:08:54and I said, oh, boy, that sounds really good.
00:08:56I said, I'll volunteer for that.
00:08:59I was selected.
00:09:01I got a letter
00:09:02to report to Edgewood, Maryland.
00:09:08When I got there,
00:09:10it didn't have the appearance
00:09:12of a military base whatsoever.
00:09:13I really felt good about it.
00:09:15I said, well, this is going to be nice
00:09:16over here two months,
00:09:17and I don't have, you know, nothing to do.
00:09:20Just go to do some testing of equipment.
00:09:23That was initially what we were told.
00:09:27We got there.
00:09:28They said there's been a slight program change.
00:09:31On behalf of the commanding officer and his staff...
00:09:33We're going to have a group of you.
00:09:35No need to be alarmed
00:09:36at the presence of these cameras.
00:09:37Not test weapons.
00:09:39We're going to test other
00:09:40non-lethal combatant materials.
00:09:44So we said, fine, you know,
00:09:45we're here.
00:09:46We might as well do it.
00:09:48And they took a picture of our group.
00:09:5255 of us were there for 60 days.
00:09:57The average day is we had
00:09:59a formation in the morning.
00:10:02We would go and eat breakfast.
00:10:05There was a day room,
00:10:07and it had a pool table,
00:10:10books, magazines, games, you know.
00:10:13And then there was a bulletin board,
00:10:14and if you were assigned to an experiment,
00:10:17then, you know, your name was there
00:10:19and it told you where to report.
00:10:24But we never knew what kind of test
00:10:25we were going to do.
00:10:28We went where the military wanted us to go,
00:10:30and if we volunteered,
00:10:32we did what we were told, period.
00:10:34No questions asked.
00:10:36I believe at that time
00:10:38my government wouldn't lie to me.
00:10:42I was wrong.
00:10:48We were guinea pigs.
00:10:52For my experiment,
00:10:55they had a long metal duck,
00:10:59just like an air conditioning duck,
00:11:01and at that end was a fan,
00:11:04which you could see.
00:11:06And I wore a gas mask
00:11:09with a tube running over
00:11:12to an oscilloscope.
00:11:14It was LSD.
00:11:17It didn't take long
00:11:19that I began to feel the effects.
00:11:23I remember this as clear as could be.
00:11:26All I heard,
00:11:27the doctors that were standing around,
00:11:30turn it off, turn it off, turn it off,
00:11:33because I was taken too much.
00:11:36Medical research.
00:11:38Oh, okay.
00:11:39I'm still, I'm sorry, doc.
00:11:40Come on, baby, I'm sorry.
00:11:41That's all right, Cap.
00:11:42All right.
00:11:42How do you feel?
00:11:44I feel like you're asking me now.
00:11:47Yeah.
00:11:47How do you feel right now?
00:11:50Can't figure it out.
00:11:51All right.
00:11:52It's hard to figure it out.
00:11:54It's hard to figure it out.
00:11:55I don't see it.
00:11:55I don't believe it.
00:11:56I feel it.
00:11:59Do you know what day it is today, Cap?
00:12:01Yeah.
00:12:02What?
00:12:03I wasn't 100% out of it,
00:12:05but I couldn't think of what day it is.
00:12:09I hope I'm used to anyway.
00:12:12Remember I said they yelled,
00:12:14stop it, stop it, stop it.
00:12:16I found out the dosage was unknown.
00:12:21George, I'm going back so far.
00:12:23So many patients in the basic,
00:12:25they're really calling, what day is it?
00:12:28I can't remember a thing.
00:12:29I can't remember.
00:12:30Come on, man.
00:12:31I don't want this stuff.
00:12:33You're off of it.
00:12:35I can't remember a thing.
00:12:37The difficulty remembering is not really amnesia
00:12:41as much as it is difficulty concentrating.
00:12:44LSD...
00:12:45I can't swear that Dr. Ketchum was there, but it was known who was the boss.
00:12:56In 1962, Dr. James Ketchum, an Army psychiatrist, was assigned to Edgewood Arsenal as research director to spearhead the human
00:13:05testing of psychochemicals.
00:13:21Ketchum was a staunch believer that delirium-inducing drugs could be effective weapons on the battlefield.
00:13:33But like many in the military at the time, he was caught up in Cold War paranoia.
00:13:39The threat that Russia's own psychochemical program was outpacing America's may have pushed him and his fellow researchers at Edgewood
00:13:48to violate medical ethics and disregard potential dangers these experimental drugs had on the volunteer soldiers.
00:13:57All in the name of national security.
00:14:21All in the name of national security.
00:14:33Ketchum died in 2019, but he left behind a personal record of the research he conducted at Edgewood in a
00:14:40final interview that has never been seen until now.
00:14:45We did start out with it primarily as a method of defense and protection, and then subsequently, can we develop
00:14:54anything ourselves that we might use that wouldn't be harmful?
00:15:00And that's how I got involved was the non-lethal weapons concept.
00:15:14You feel the effects of the agent?
00:15:17Yes, I do.
00:15:18Are they quite strong, would you say, or mild?
00:15:22I don't know, just like in two different worlds.
00:15:27Are the effects increasing or staying the same?
00:15:33Or decreasing?
00:15:35I don't know, they just come and go.
00:15:37Mm-hmm.
00:15:38Are they stronger now than they were half an hour ago?
00:15:41The soldiers who volunteered for the Edgewood assignment believe they were lied to.
00:15:46I don't know, I think they are.
00:15:48Or misinformed of the nature of the experiments that they signed up for.
00:15:51And then continue subtracting.
00:15:54They claim they were never told of the adverse or possible long-term effects the drugs would have on them.
00:15:59So it was 98.
00:16:00But in Ketchum's mind, the testing he conducted fell in line with standard operating procedures of a classified program.
00:16:08We gave them all the information we could.
00:16:12We couldn't give them the name of the agent because that was a military secret.
00:16:17Seven from 98.
00:16:19Everything's moving.
00:16:20I know, it's difficult to try.
00:16:22And we couldn't predict all of the effects to the subjects because those would vary.
00:16:27So I believe we were as transparent as we could be.
00:16:3392.
00:16:34Under the circumstances.
00:16:3892.
00:16:43All right, what's next then?
00:16:47I don't know.
00:16:50What comes after 92?
00:17:01Is this a track seven from 92?
00:17:03I don't know.
00:17:14In the next track, seven from 92?
00:17:14All right.
00:17:15Make seven from 92.
00:17:18Seven from 92?
00:17:25in mild form visual changes are apparent only in the peripheral field of vision
00:17:30but as the intensity increases the central part of the field is involved as well
00:17:36how would you gauge the severity of lsd effect in this subject i want you to subtract seven
00:17:45from 101 it seems like ketchum's in there for these evaluations i presume right oh yeah he
00:17:52personally participated in the research directly it was up to jim ketchum whether or not they had
00:17:59had enough to be withdrawn from the test all right but that's enough right now yeah thank you very
00:18:04much you can go that's why you see him in every one of these movies lsd does not produce a
00:18:11dreamy
00:18:11relaxation rather it is a powerful there are actually 10 rules of conduct that all researchers
00:18:17must abide by when performing human experiments it's called the nuremberg code it's a set of rules
00:18:26that were established after world war ii in response to the medical atrocities performed by
00:18:30nazi scientists on the 8th of august 1945 when i first heard the story of edgewood it hit home
00:18:38my own grandmother was experimented on by nazi scientists in a camp in hamburg germany during
00:18:45world war ii because of her account and thousands more like hers these 10 rules are recognized today
00:18:52under international law one rule states voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential
00:19:00this means that the volunteers must be properly informed of the nature and possible outcome of the
00:19:05experiment but under ketchum the volunteers weren't told what drugs they were given or what the
00:19:11possible side effects would be another rule the nuremberg code states during the course of the
00:19:18experiment the scientists in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage if he
00:19:23believes that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury disability or death the
00:19:29experimental subject but did the experiments actually cause harm the soldiers who participated in the
00:19:37tests believe they did
00:19:51edgewood's human research was a highly classified program the volunteers were all under a strict
00:19:57secrecy oath for more than 50 years after the program ended they were forbidden from speaking about
00:20:04anything that went on within that facility today they're still seeking answers as to what the
00:20:11army did to them and why no one has been held accountable they promised not to harm us the consent
00:20:19stated that
00:20:20you knew and had been explained of what would happen to you which was a lie it was an out
00:20:24blatant lie they
00:20:26didn't even know what would happen to you and you signed a disclaimer stating that you knew what they were
00:20:31giving you
00:20:32even though you didn't catch him was as bad as the rest of them and he didn't believe anyone got
00:20:40hurt
00:20:41right oh yeah he went to his deathbed saying the same thing yeah and it was a lie they gave
00:20:47him
00:20:47accommodations and awards what do we get all we get is kicked to the curb and try to prove that
00:20:53we have
00:20:53problems from these tests from 50 years prior the whole thing is just so criminal so criminal that they did
00:21:01to their own soldiers that somebody need to be held accountable
00:21:09it should be obvious from these excerpts that lsd is indeed a potent drug were ketchum and the edgewood
00:21:17researchers violating medical ethics or was the human research they conducted sound and necessary
00:21:23science in the name of national security this is the central question of our investigation and there's
00:21:32only one man who can answer that people said you know we were putting them through terrible
00:21:42experiences that were really unjust and immoral and most of the people who were delirious didn't
00:21:51remember any of these delirious behaviors same as if you had a dream I don't think drug studies were
00:22:00in those that they had in mind when the nuremberg rules were first put together namely that the experimenter
00:22:09should be willing to stop any experiment if it appeared to him that it was harmful or causing
00:22:19problems but to give a drug that lasts three days and the guy is going to say on day two
00:22:25I want to stop this experiment I don't like the way I feel you really couldn't do it you'd have
00:22:31to wait for
00:22:31it to wear off I'll ask you more about that in a minute but just try to subtract these sevens
00:22:46for
00:22:46me though ketchum believed the nuremberg code didn't apply to the psychochemical research at Edgewood
00:22:53the u.s army was assured that it would be shielded from any repercussions or future lawsuits from the
00:23:00test subjects by what's called the ferris doctrine it's a 1950s supreme court ruling that prohibits
00:23:07soldiers from taking any kind of legal action against the military essentially what the court ruled
00:23:14was that the military could subject its people to all sorts of mistreatment up into including death
00:23:22and enjoy broad immunity for all of that behavior this allowed the military secretive human testing to
00:23:30thrive so they basically opened pandora's box and now they could perform all these experiments
00:23:37on servicemen and get away with it there yes carte blanche they could do whatever they wanted
00:23:48Ketchum not only believes psychochemicals could be weaponized against our enemies he saw the potential
00:23:54in them for a more humane approach to warfare and set out to find the ideal non-lethal agent
00:24:03this man an experienced infantry sergeant volunteered to receive a test dose of an anti-cholinergic compound
00:24:10within two to three hours the mission at Edgewood when i arrived was to find a drug that would produce
00:24:20incapacitation to me that's a big improvement over having to go in and shoot everyone
00:24:27marijuana had been used first in trials
00:24:33which would produce a state of you know being slightly woozy or whatever
00:24:38do you find the the sensation unpleasant no great you like it very much
00:24:45how do you feel pcp is another one that just had momentary use you might say
00:24:53I feel pretty good sir do you are you cold I know I'm not cold at all and then was
00:24:58discarded
00:24:58as too dangerous in terms of its effects on behavior yes sir I could run I run 100 miles
00:25:05right now is that right that's right pretty pepped up huh uh-huh so the idea of developing a non
00:25:10-lethal
00:25:11agent started out with LSD
00:25:17LSD didn't cause the total inability to function even though it's totally confused behavior that's an
00:25:26interesting aspect of LSD if the pressure is there to perform many individuals can perform if they need
00:25:34to and they have to you know pull themselves together what are you doing that for I came in
00:25:45really when BZ came on the scene BZ more active and longer lasting than LSD it blocks acetylcholine
00:25:55which is the principal drug that controls behavior within two to three hours he shows all the features
00:26:02of a toxic delirium which can produce psychosis lasting several days at the typical incapacitating
00:26:10dose BZ caused a real kaleidoscope of effects scattered function and thinking and alteration
00:26:22and perception that is prominent in delirium BZ was the chemical of choice and I built the program
00:26:35around that six and a half hours after exposure time the confused volunteer needed help as he
00:26:43attempted to traverse part of an obstacle course at this point hallucinations and other mental
00:26:50disturbances were evident we had millions of dollars to work with and also a systematic
00:26:58recruiting of volunteers so we were able to put together a rather elaborate series of testing
00:27:08the program would be announced and out of maybe 300 subjects 20 would be chosen before the higher
00:27:19dose more intense form of drug effect subtract seven again except for anyone is in the sequences that follow
00:27:36delirium was produced experimentally by the administration of various belladonna alkaloids
00:27:43delirium may be viewed as a form of brain failure okay neurons misfire synapses are blocked inhibitory influences are improperly
00:27:54modulated and so forth
00:28:00so the discovery of BZ was actually a discovery of the ideal incapacitating agent at edgewood yeah it seemed like
00:28:07this really checked a lot of the boxes and what they were looking for it incapacitated people it had
00:28:12long-lasting effects I mean this really was the ideal weapon in a way are there any street drugs that
00:28:19are similar to BZ no BZ is a bad trip it's something that's more like psychosis or delirium
00:28:29BZ was the one drug that was still nerve agent potent but it also had effects that lasted way longer
00:28:36than LSD
00:28:37BZ were more consistent in incapacitation it's a bad thing people would not recreationally choose to take it
00:28:48BZ produced delirium which is not the same as hallucinating like you would with LSD
00:28:54it's a nightmare experience
00:28:59BZ here is an illustration of its use in a volunteer subject how do you feel David
00:29:03first a sample of his pre-test mental status they were always coming to me to say come on we're
00:29:11doing
00:29:11another one we're doing another one in my case I think I spent three times in the in the padded
00:29:17rooms
00:29:18the subject was given a delirium producing dose of atropine and is interviewed at the height of the
00:29:24drug action what parts of your station that David what parts of your station that
00:29:33we all did different tests and some of them were put in padded rooms which I was not
00:29:40I was in like a clinical type setting with six or eight other guys they said sit down here and
00:29:47lean over and breathe into this machine still I didn't know what to expect they never explained nothing
00:29:59to me how old are you David David how old are you David how old are you
00:30:11where are you David you know where you are
00:30:17can you say anything David I don't know how long the hallucination lasted
00:30:22how do you feel tell us how you feel David probably two or three days
00:30:27there wasn't much left to me by the time they got done with me
00:30:32sit there a second or two they said okay let's go back
00:30:36to dispensary and uh at some point in my skin under my skin my freckles
00:30:44I was seeing bugs I thought they were actually bugs they were crawling under my skin
00:30:50I got up and I went in the bathroom and I had my razor and I actually tried to cut
00:30:55the bugs out from
00:30:55under well I've seen on my arm but they tried to cut one off my leg and I didn't tell
00:31:01them because I
00:31:02didn't want them to know that I had bugs crawling under my skin and I told them I dropped my
00:31:08razor which
00:31:09indeed that wasn't the truth and that's all documented in the notes that I got from them
00:31:14at the end of the test they always do a little write-up and they said no untoward effects
00:31:21noticed even though I was given an above the normal incapacitating amount that should have done the
00:31:28job in other words they gradually increased the amount of drugs kept increasing them till you got to
00:31:34what they called a man break point which is where you totally go completely out of it
00:31:40without what their intention was to harm you
00:31:48he was just lucky to get out alive
00:31:53are you in danger here i feel like i am so what's the danger here
00:31:57and i just don't feel that i am safe here in the house here in this here in this house
00:32:05you don't feel safe here no i don't
00:32:11it's obvious from these videos that bz was successful at incapacitation
00:32:16but what's also clear is that many of the test subjects suffered as a result of being exposed to it
00:32:22nuremberg rule number four states the experiment should be conducted so as to avoid all unnecessary
00:32:27physical and mental suffering and injury was it really necessary to subject our own soldiers to
00:32:35physical and mental suffering in the name of national security apparently ketchum thought so
00:32:42and so did the army's top brass who gave him the money to advance the program into the next phase
00:32:57this is private first class zadrosny normally an efficient well-trained soldier two years with army
00:33:05intelligence but now as a volunteer test subject under the influence of a standard incapacitating chemical
00:33:12agent his training is worthless the military are not going to be very interested in strictly
00:33:23laboratory-oriented testing we've got to show them something about how they would perform in a military
00:33:29type situation this film report covers a 72-hour clinical test of a temporarily incapacitating chemical
00:33:39agent on soldier volunteers so the first one i put together was a group of four soldiers in a
00:33:46make-believe forward installation post the doses given to these four individuals range from
00:33:55incapacitating dose at the top down to a mild dose at the bottom a low dose of agent was fed
00:34:01into the
00:34:01mixing bowl and the longest weekend began for specialist fourth class carpenter
00:34:08the method given was inhalation well of course that produced quite a bit of variation it turned out
00:34:16that by intramuscular injection it got the same amount of effects so we used that private zadrosny received
00:34:24a high dose of the incapacitating agent in 15 minutes he won't be able to focus his eyes properly
00:34:31in an hour his speech will become difficult borderline hallucinations will come late in the experiment
00:34:40this individual is a sergeant who received a placebo for the fourth volunteer sergeant hall
00:34:47there would be no effects we wanted to have at least one normal individual in there
00:34:52to help out if one of the other guys got really berserk or something
00:35:00the peak of the compound's physical effects was reached within four to six hours
00:35:05the peak of about eight hours is usually the peak time several hours later when a simulated chemical alarm
00:35:16sounded here he's responding to non-existent visual hallucinations
00:35:23here he can't get his mask on he's kind of fighting it with his head because he doesn't know what
00:35:30what he's putting on actually now soldiers are supposed to mask within nine seconds
00:35:38as you can see this guy here he's not able to mask inability to put on his protective mask
00:35:44demonstrated that the full dose recipient sadrosny was totally ineffective as a team member
00:35:52i was lying in a bed because i just sprained my knee the morning we were supposed to start this
00:35:59thing
00:35:59playing tennis and i just simply sat there in bed and watched on closed circuit tv what was going on
00:36:06in the
00:36:06room for sadrosny the high dose subject the peak of metal incapacitation arrived about nine hours
00:36:13after exposure to the agent he remained awake experiencing hallucinations for a total of 36 hours
00:36:21oh wait he was awake and hallucinating for 36 hours yes that sounds miserable
00:36:30hallucinations is a term that's improperly used for lsd where illusions are the actual experience
00:36:40and with bz they're not illusions they're actual hallucinations the individual reacts to them as if
00:36:46they're real constant vigil over the incapacitated man was needed to help control his tendency to panic
00:36:54as his tension and uneasiness mounted ever heard of a drug that makes you hallucinate for 36 hours
00:37:02even some of them would last even longer for uh days almost weeks
00:37:08through the night sadrosny searched for an exit
00:37:11this happened several times he'd go over to the door try to turn the knob but since it was locked
00:37:17he
00:37:17couldn't get out and he said we're trapped in here and he said the same thing numerous times we're trapped
00:37:24i remember talking on the telephone and i would get after 24 hours rest the completely recovered
00:37:35volunteers reviewed their experience here they're having a discussion and i'm sitting here
00:37:41asking them to explain what they did if they remember it what was this business over here in
00:37:48the corner you're lying down and looking at the wall well the pores in this in the wall seem to
00:37:55be i
00:37:56was looking and they seem to be two armies on each side of one of the piece of tape running
00:38:00down the
00:38:00wall two armies converging and you guys so at the end of these tests uh ketchum would come in and
00:38:04debrief
00:38:05the uh test subjects and you see this is almost like a group therapy session going through what
00:38:11their experience was the medical officer asked for comment from the volunteer who had received a high
00:38:17dose when do you think you would have been able to resume uh normal function uh i think about uh
00:38:27uh two in the morning two two o'clock monday morning after two and a half days yes
00:38:37so drosny who had received the heavy he later killed himself a few years after this i think
00:38:42himself and his wife i mean a lot of the vets that were put through this have had long-standing
00:38:50mental health issues that they attribute to these experiments what were you trying to get out for
00:38:56i don't know
00:39:00it's just saying that i had to get out
00:39:15when it started there was nobody i could go to to talk to about it because we were told never
00:39:22to
00:39:23mention anything that happened and i know exactly where it happened
00:39:28a lot of the flashbacks that i have started right at edgewood
00:39:35i have hallucinations almost every night of
00:39:41and they're not they're not all the same most of the hallucinations i have are so so far out
00:39:46and they're so scary you know i have stuff like that's coming after me
00:39:51and i've been i've gotten up i've burned my head into dressers i've knocked stuff off shelves
00:39:56my wife i chase her out of bed almost every night you know and you know not it's not only
00:40:00nighttime
00:40:01yeah you also constantly have those what i call intrusive thoughts during the daytime
00:40:07you know the stuff keeps coming back over and over and over again that's just been there since edgewood
00:40:14and it's and it's gone on for a long long time
00:40:19i honestly think i'm normal the other med balls they have serious medical issues the emphasis should
00:40:33be on them
00:40:36not me
00:40:39we were told it was top secret and couldn't say a word
00:40:44we were under threat of judicial punishment okay and judicial punishment for retaining top secret
00:40:50clearance is 20 years in leavenworth i went home to my my fiancee and that was the first time she
00:40:59asked me what's wrong with you all they could say is yeah i'm not feeling well i'll get over it
00:41:07i didn't
00:41:10get over it but it's not about me it's about the people we hurt and we hurt a lot of
00:41:17people
00:41:19a lot of people
00:41:24and if we could have
00:41:26turned back the clock cut out the top secret
00:41:33manning i firmly believe that a lot of the people that left all of us would be with us now
00:41:45they guaranteed us we were supposed to be called back for checkups
00:41:51for an extended period of time after the test even up until the time we got out of the military
00:41:58because they had no idea what the test did to us or what it would do to us you know
00:42:04later on down the
00:42:04road
00:42:07but they never followed up
00:42:17what was worse than that we were bound by secrecy oaths
00:42:22and we were bound not to talk to nobody including your private doctor about any of the tips which
00:42:31which limited or restricted us from even filing claims yes this letter was sent to everybody in 2006
00:42:38relieving us for part of that secret secret secret but but on top of that we were still bound as
00:42:43this says what you can discuss about the test they talk about you can discuss about certain things to
00:42:49your doctor but it says on the other hand you should not discuss anything that relates to operational
00:42:53information that might reveal chemical or biological warfare vulnerabilities or capability
00:42:59so this right here locks us in still where we're still bound by the federal government
00:43:04what regardless of what they say we were still bound that we couldn't even file claims
00:43:10so we've been treated unfairly all of the town to think that you were lured if you will into this
00:43:18the fact that our own government not only experimented on you but did not follow up
00:43:24and did not give you what your just due is is it's beyond criminal
00:43:30the volunteers found themselves in a classic catch-22 they wanted to file for va medical benefits
00:43:37but there was no way to show that their ailments were connected to their service
00:43:42without breaking the oath of secrecy
00:43:45breaking that oath would make them ineligible for benefits because in doing so they would have been
00:43:51dishonorably discharged
00:43:55secrecy oaths aren't unusual in classified military programs but 50 years seems excessive
00:44:02even more the vets are still partially bound to that secrecy oath today
00:44:07it begs the question what is the government still trying to hide about the edgewood experiments
00:44:14a lot of people don't realize after world war ii during the cold war we the americans and russians
00:44:21were fighting to gain some of the smartest people that came out of germany that's the way our jet
00:44:28propulsion age came about that's the way we got ahead in the rocket race they also brought the doctors
00:44:35that were experimenting on some of the jewish people there in auschwitz and different places to edgewood
00:44:41and i'm sure that they used them on some of the guides here
00:44:45it wasn't just a few of them there was there was a lot of them that's who you were surrounded
00:44:50with
00:44:51you wouldn't think this country would do that kind of stuff a lot of people probably will say that's
00:44:56all just a bunch of bull but it's not if you look up project paperclip that's the way it was
00:45:02orchestrated
00:45:04in 1945 president truman receives a memo from the commerce secretary which essentially says that
00:45:12the united states will be bringing outstanding german scientists to quote advance the frontiers
00:45:18of scientific knowledge for national benefit and what this was was project paperclip
00:45:25between 1945 and 1959 the united states brought in untold numbers of scientists from germany many of
00:45:34them nazis wait so this was after the nuremberg trials right and in fact some of the scientists
00:45:43went through nuremberg and were released early to come to the united states i mean it's sickening i have
00:45:50a memorandum here where they're referring to nazi war criminals as german talent they gave these people
00:45:56visas and i've read that at least eight nazi scientists were at edgewood and two of them
00:46:06were otto ambrose and fritz hoffman these were two of hitler's favorite chemists in nazi germany
00:46:12i mean ambrose was literally on trial in nuremberg i mean just like stepping back for a second
00:46:18we take nazi scientists and we bring them to our top arsenal for chemicals where we are testing
00:46:29our own servicemen i mean just think about that for a second that's not chilling i mean this is like
00:46:35do we have any documents from edgewood that show ambrose was a chemist there yeah there's documentation
00:46:41that both ambrose and hoffman were there but it's a little bit unclear exactly if they were involved
00:46:47with ketchum's work we do know that hoffman did take an interest in lsd so the idea that they
00:46:55collaborated in some way isn't too far out
00:47:06sometimes mentioned that we brought over nazi chemists to work in our labs they were no real
00:47:14nazis i mean they had to do what they were told back in europe although there were a couple people
00:47:21that were in the chemical branch of my larger clinical research department that took place in
00:47:29these other buildings to me dr ketchum's statement that there were no real nazis is disturbing
00:47:43although we can't prove or disprove the vets claims of nazi involvement in the psychochemical program
00:47:49if you volunteered for the edgewood assignment you could find yourself in an actual gas chamber
00:47:58there were many other non-lethal agents that were developed and tested at edgewood they went
00:48:04way beyond psychochemicals i think they really just cast a wide net in order to see what could
00:48:10perhaps give an edge on the battlefield i mean it says here cs gas is that the same as the
00:48:15police use
00:48:15yeah but then with the vietnam war they had the idea to use this in combat this is a report
00:48:24on chemical
00:48:24munition systems currently under development by the united states army so they had a project called
00:48:30water bucket to make riot control agents into tactical weapons they tested it at fort campbell
00:48:39american soldiers pretending that they were vietcong the objective of the test was to determine the
00:48:46effects of agent cs on both masked and unmasked troops if you look at the vietnam war we had two
00:48:53things we used to use herbicides and riot control agents on the battlefield right control to get rid of
00:48:59cover and herbicides to get rid of concealment and that's the purpose of these kind of tests was to show
00:49:05that this stuff is effective to make those weapons troop test water bucket one indicated that riot
00:49:12control agent cs was a potentially effective tactical weapon that could be employed both
00:49:18offensively and defensively in december 1965 troop test water bucket two was conducted at edgewood arsenal
00:49:28maryland to test the effectiveness in a series of simulated tactical situations
00:49:34at edgewood there they're trying to test how much cs tear gas will produce a casualty effect on the
00:49:40battlefield and so the levels that they would do there would be much higher than they would do for
00:49:46training purposes and it has a swift and pronounced effect on men so much so that the united states
00:49:59army chemical warfare laboratories are investigating between the effective dose and the lethal dose
00:50:08we found in nine that the cs they were using wasn't as important as they thought it was so when
00:50:14they
00:50:14said they were going to strengthen it so we signed off on the dotted line you know good good old
00:50:21soldiers as
00:50:22it were we signed off and then they started testing us what you are about to see are actual film
00:50:30clips of
00:50:30those tests they would never tell you what they were testing it was just another gas that was
00:50:39one of the two worst tests i ever took criteria for the study were based upon experiments then being
00:50:47conducted in a dynamic aerosol exposure chamber to study effects of proposed compounds these army
00:50:55volunteers who entered the chamber knowing they would be subjected to an aerosol of a new compound but not
00:51:02knowing what the effects would be this is really disturbing this is a gas chamber this does not look
00:51:12any different than what you would see in a concentration camp they want to make sure that if they're going
00:51:17to use it on the battlefield they will stop a highly motivated enemy that wants to kill you
00:51:29the effects were apparent almost at once although told to remain in the chamber as long as they could
00:51:39in just 27 seconds the volunteers left the chamber first thing i did was wipe my eyes and i went
00:51:47blind
00:51:49like totally blind for about eight hours i passed out i mean i was out of it and i mean
00:51:57i was out of it
00:51:58to the point where i was in the barracks for four days i have brain damage because of this i
00:52:05have sight and only
00:52:07one eye this all happened after edward am i angry i'm angry but not to the point where i won't
00:52:17be then
00:52:20i want justice okay we want medical treatment and we want it to be out in the open so it
00:52:26never happens
00:52:27again though the army experimented with an array of non-lethal chemicals bz proved to be the most
00:52:38promising incapacitating agent but before weaponizing it military brass needed to see how it would perform
00:52:46outside of a clinical setting in open battlefield conditions so ketchum devised a large-scale test at a
00:52:56military site in the remote desert of utah called dugway proving ground
00:53:04to get this idea off they need to experiment with bz out of dugway to see how it would really
00:53:11work in
00:53:11that scenario a lot of the experiments you had seen here they were dosed by injection or other means
00:53:18this was one where it was battlefield open air experiment not in a test chamber ketchum put this
00:53:23idea together and he got approval for it ketchum spent more than 10 years and millions of dollars
00:53:31on the human testing of bz but the program's funding was drying up he needed to wow his military
00:53:37superiors and proved to them once and for all that bz was ready to be weaponized
00:53:44so he wrote a plot for this movie in which it started out with the cloud going down through the
00:53:53night sky
00:53:58this is the cloud that causes confusion
00:54:05this cloud was unleashed so men could measure the dimensions
00:54:12of its stupefying power
00:54:21what they did is they put the test subjects on a flatbed truck and they moved them around inside
00:54:27the smoke at a hundred and a thousand yards downwind the truck itself was moving up and backward along
00:54:35this arc of the circle to follow you know the smoke that was coming rather than have it go off
00:54:41to the side and missed the volunteers
00:54:47by helicopter the exposed volunteers were brought from the test grid to the medical unit
00:54:55to be watched and studied
00:54:59each hour contained an examination by the doctor
00:55:11we had eight different tasks that were all set up
00:55:16they even put up a forest forest in this desert type area where the testing was done
00:55:23here we are one hour later uh that would be five and they had to carry out duties as a
00:55:28patrol
00:55:28against an opposing patrol that had no drug
00:55:34could we see an example of something you would call military incapacitation
00:55:38well perhaps a good illustration would be uh private green
00:55:57so through the experiment they would put them out and have them do mock combat exercises
00:56:03you got an id card sorry doing things to see how they would operate being instructed to take orders
00:56:09as you can see this guy here can barely walk and he's having to be guided to his guard post
00:56:13and then they would be sent back to the clinical testing area where the indoor testing was done
00:56:22and all this was videotaped
00:56:28he seems to be having some trouble yes he certainly is there are several scenes here which show typical
00:56:33signs of early delirium compatible with with what we call a uh oh a toxic brain syndrome
00:56:40can't what talk talk can't make the words come out is your throat uh have anything to do with that
00:56:48i feel like what the videos really drive home too is how young all of them were
00:56:52like this was happening so early in their lives
00:56:58oh this guy's terrified yeah yeah he's crying now this was how many hours after being gassed
00:57:07three hours was he out of commission after that he sure was well what about those other tests he
00:57:14was doing inside the uh this was a lengthy experiment it was easily a week-long exercise
00:57:25and so the film that ketchum produced did that convince the generals that this was worth moving
00:57:30forward yeah bz was standardized as a chemical weapon the united states acquired a hundred thousand pounds
00:57:39of it and we weaponized it into a series of thermal munitions was it ever used in battle it was
00:57:48never used
00:57:48in battle that we know of
00:57:53ketchum finally completed his mission to weaponize an incapacitating agent
00:57:58but soon after edgewood's secret human research program was exposed
00:58:07the u.s army today suspended testing chemical compounds on human volunteers at its edgewood arsenal
00:58:15in maryland by 1975 word got out about what was going on at edgewood and the program was quickly
00:58:23engulfed in scandal stories of medical misconduct leaked out of the facility as well as the army's
00:58:31lack of follow-up treatment for the volunteers i tried to get a follow-up study done and my boss
00:58:40said no
00:58:40we can't afford to do that i said well can we do some of it finally said okay 50 guys
00:58:46who got different
00:58:47drugs so he didn't get enough guys in one drug category to draw any conclusions all he could say
00:58:52is that no none of the 50 showed anything to worry about but i couldn't get you know a full
00:58:59-scale follow-up
00:59:03okay so here's a memo from the department of army saying that it's initiated a program to identify and
00:59:10notify participants and this was from november 2nd 1979 so was that the first time that they reached
00:59:18out to these test vets to say hey there may have been long-term effects of that testing problem with
00:59:24that study was that it was not able to contact all of the 6 500 people that were subjected to
00:59:31experiments at edgewood why not just because they didn't have contact information for people after
00:59:38they had left the service i don't think the army contacted any of them they had no intentions of doing
00:59:48any long-term studies to see what harm it did they they never had any intentions
01:00:03no the military had already decided not to approve any further testing
01:00:10and to disapprove that he further use of bz or stockpiling and they also started tucking all the
01:00:22reports in that period into file drawers in some locked up place
01:00:29they completely shoveled it under the rug
01:00:37the army's decision not to follow up on the test subjects raises questions
01:00:42was it that they were afraid of what they might discover or was there an alternative motive
01:00:49the test vets began digging for answers frank with what do you got there when i was discharged it
01:00:56says here that i would be called back for later tests for in two weeks um so no this one
01:01:03says follow
01:01:03up seven days seven days i was supposed to be called back did you ever get a call no i
01:01:08haven't heard
01:01:08from him yet i'm still waiting how many years has it been i'm standing by the phone okay yeah
01:01:16yeah we can laugh now can't we do that that's what i used to say they're coming it is it
01:01:22is comical yeah
01:01:27in 2011 some of the volunteers began requesting documents from the army
01:01:31to find out the details of the experiments they were in
01:01:35but the documents they received posed more questions than answers
01:01:41what when i decided to try to get my records i heard it was hard to get them so i
01:01:45sent two
01:01:46requests on the same day certified and two weeks later i got both of them back
01:01:51what one was fairly redacted and the other was semi-clean why do you think they redacted it
01:01:59they were hiding stuff here's the consent form just three of them one of them was dated to 27th of
01:02:06april 1969 i got out of the army in 67 and i was at edgewood in 65. this is may
01:02:12of 64. may of 64 i was in high
01:02:15school so they're saying that that's a release form yeah that you well what they obviously had done is
01:02:22cut the bottom off or something so here's your name signed and dated right for dates that you were not
01:02:32in the army it's absurd it looks like they ripped them off the bottom pasted them all up and copied
01:02:41them all together and it says the nature of the proposed experimental procedure has been personally
01:02:47explained to the undersigned volunteer and he agrees to participate as a volunteer right and you
01:02:53weren't in the army so these are made up right it's a government document and this is a medical
01:02:58document on top of all of it this is crazy if it's true that the army fabricated consent forms
01:03:08what else are they trying to hide from the volunteers yeah what else do you have guys
01:03:13uh well we'll start with my records i i did get a complete set of records uh later on i
01:03:19was told you
01:03:20know that probably is not all your records so you need to go back and ask again which i did
01:03:24and when i
01:03:26i did get uh another complete set of records but there were a couple documents that were included in
01:03:31that that was not included in the very first one i got a sheet that documented that each drug that
01:03:38i
01:03:38had taken and the date uh there were three different you didn't get that the first time around no i
01:03:43didn't get that one sheet why wouldn't they give that to you that seems pretty relevant it included
01:03:47another test which was not in the first batch frank has a theory on why one test may have been
01:03:56excluded
01:03:57from his original records and i've got to warn you it's pretty wild it involves another top secret
01:04:03program run by the cia i remember nothing about the test just that i had uh ea2233 on such and
01:04:14such
01:04:14state well i don't remember that ea2233 which reading about it is one of the highest hallucinogenic
01:04:21drugs that you can take it's like bz but that's also a drug that wipes your memory out you can't
01:04:28remember what happened a lot of people don't know the cia was involved they were actually used
01:04:35to help experiment on us trying to brainwash people which the cia was interested in
01:04:42and i'm not going to elaborate on on what happened that i think was related to that
01:04:47because it's embarrassing to me but there was a little bar if i'm not mistaken off post right out
01:04:53the gate and then i think that they without me knowing at least something that i'd drunk
01:05:00and they did this to people and uh there's a back in the 50s they had a project called project
01:05:06uh midnight climax the cia in california took hookers and this is the truth and they paid them
01:05:17to lace their john's drinks with lsd and making people do things that that they wouldn't normally do
01:05:27i'm thinking that this is part of that same program because what happened at this bar
01:05:32me and two of my friends met this lady who i thought she said she was a bam or a
01:05:39way a woman army
01:05:41what happened is beyond what an old country boy from north carolina would have been involved in
01:05:48so the cia was involved deeply in this regardless of what they say the same fake news is the truth
01:06:00frank's claim may seem like a wild conspiracy theory but the cia was in fact experimenting
01:06:07with drugs on unsuspecting americans at the exact same time by the 1950s medical researchers at
01:06:17universities across america became interested in lsd for its possible therapeutic application
01:06:23in psychiatric disorders like addiction and depression
01:06:29but what many of them didn't know is that much of that research
01:06:33was secretly being funded by the central intelligence agency under a program called mk ultra
01:06:42the cia wanted to find out if they could use lsd on foreign adversaries
01:06:47as a truth serum or a mind control agent i'm going to give you this cup that contains
01:06:55blycergic acid will you drink it yes
01:07:03mk ultra contracted with psychiatrists to do work universities prisons
01:07:10would work with lsd they would work with materials that would cause amnesia
01:07:17narcotics were involved they ran the gamut
01:07:22for example a lot of the lsd work done was done at brothels in like san francisco
01:07:27with foreign national businessmen visiting them what was the name of that project operation
01:07:33midnight climax basically to lure men and to dose them unknowingly with lsd
01:07:40even to this day it's a blemish on the cia's record as a seriously ethically challenged program
01:07:46and sydney gottlieb was the man who was running mk ultra and he had alan dulles who was then the
01:07:51cia
01:07:52chief really supporting him and there was very little accountability in one of the documents
01:07:58gottlieb basically states the mission of mk ultra as to crush the human psyche i mean just really dark
01:08:05deranged stuff i mean i think it says a lot that with ketchum and edgewood he kept all the
01:08:11documentation of the experiments that they conducted whereas sydney gottlieb at the end of mk ultra he
01:08:17ordered everyone to destroy all records of it completely but mk ultra there was no crossover with
01:08:23edgewood right um edgewood did its own thing and the cia was doing separate stuff but they were all
01:08:30researching psychochemicals for their own purposes the united states was conducting two top secret drug
01:08:40programs at the same time it's difficult to imagine that there was no crossover between the two
01:08:48we've established that the army's volunteer program may have been conducting experiments unethically
01:08:53but if the cia was using enlisted soldiers as human guinea pigs without their consent it wouldn't
01:08:59only be immoral it would be illegal that's the one i want i want that one because the ferris doctrine
01:09:08prohibits soldiers from taking any kind of legal action against the military the test vets needed to
01:09:14prove that the cia was involved it was the only way they could make a case against the army for
01:09:20denying
01:09:21their va medical claims that proof would come from a fellow edgewood vet eric muth i think what they
01:09:28did is that went out of their way to eliminate the paper trail eric spent more than a decade filing
01:09:36freedom of information requests and as a result he collected a trove of top secret documents
01:09:43one of those documents alluded to a money trail between the cia and edgewood
01:10:06it allowed the vets to circumvent the ferris doctrine and file a civil case naming the cia as a
01:10:16defendant with the department of defense and va as co-defendants
01:10:25good morning here marks the beginning of the deposition for dr james s ketchum volume one in the
01:10:32matter of vietnam veterans in 2011 dr james ketchum was deposed by the vets lawyers
01:10:38that deposition has never been shared publicly until now do you realize you're testifying under
01:10:46penalty of perjury as if you were testifying in a court of law yes as head of research at edgewood
01:10:53ketchum would certainly have known if the cia was experimenting on american soldiers
01:10:58the question was how much did he know and what was his own involvement with the intelligence agency
01:11:05you're not an employee of the cia are you no were you ever an employee of the cia no you're
01:11:12not
01:11:12currently an independent contractor with the cia no were you ever an independent contractor with the cia
01:11:18no so this deposition of james ketchum contains a lot of really fascinating information two days of
01:11:26deposition ketchum being asked really about edgewood about potential cia involvement a lot of the agents
01:11:32that were being used at edgewood then too were you aware that the cia had transferred funds to earl
01:11:40for the purpose of carrying out studies involving ea 3167 no i was not aware of that there's a document
01:11:49here that says funds in the amount of 37 000 were transferred to edward arsenal for the purpose of
01:11:54determining the clinical effects of ea 3167 ea 3167 that is a long-lasting psychochemical like bz and but
01:12:05different it's different that could penetrate through the skin you ever hear of a plan to apply
01:12:12ea through 3167 through a handshake none that i recall now that would be valuable to cia because
01:12:21you can take out a political opponent by making it look like they are suffering from chronic alcoholism
01:12:28or schizophrenia and then they could be taken out of action by having a long-term mental defect
01:12:35from these chemicals the agency set up a joint effort with edgewood to pursue further animal
01:12:40testing and to move to human testing on this compound military and volunteers in the edgewood
01:12:46program were tested with symptoms lasting up to six weeks were you involved in any of that work
01:12:52i wrote the summary report um the subjects tested at edgewood arsenal may have been tested
01:13:01by someone under my supervision i think it's a matter of what did he know and what did he not
01:13:09want to
01:13:10know yeah but that doesn't necessarily mean ketchum knew there is the possibility he would not know who
01:13:16was funding his work this project was a part of a of the project designated as mk often do you
01:13:23know who
01:13:23the cia contact officer was for the ea 3167 project i didn't know there was one i mean in terms
01:13:32of him
01:13:33being dodgy the lawyer flat out asks him my question was did you understand that the project often was
01:13:38a joint testing program between edgewood arsenal and the cia and ketchum replies as i stated i didn't
01:13:45know of any programs or sub programs of mk ultra while i was at edgewood in fact this term would
01:13:53have
01:13:54been well this is very strange to me okay this is not mk ultra this is project often oh okay
01:14:01well that
01:14:02sort of implies that he knew something about mk ultra because there's another document here saying there are
01:14:08149 mk ultra sub projects the problem we have is sydney godley destroyed the record so we don't know
01:14:15what happened back then or how much involvement there was with the with edgewood there is a quote
01:14:22here in the deposition where they ask you you don't condone that do you destruction of records yes not
01:14:28generally he's keeping the door open to maybe in some cases the destruction of records is uh beneficial
01:14:35to me my legacy to the program to the government dr ketchum tried to keep as many records as possible
01:14:41and one of the things that's interesting is because he was a medical doctor he had to keep
01:14:46personal records of these things as well it's a gray area are these test subjects are they patients
01:14:58lawyers for the test vets laid out undeniable proof of cia involvement at edgewood
01:15:23arsenal and i said in boxes next question
01:15:42ketchum's personal records and medical reports of the army psychochemical program
01:15:47may have revealed a deeper connection between the cia and edgewood but after the program shut down
01:15:56ketchum held on to those documents if you knew those reports existed today and you asked for them
01:16:05you probably wouldn't be able to get most of them uh the government would just say that's restricted
01:16:11or it doesn't exist some individuals 20 years later told me when i went there we were told the
01:16:21there were no tests done officers told me there were no tests done here with drugs
01:16:34it's like it never happened
01:16:43in 2017 the civil case was settled
01:16:47the court mandated the department of defense to inform all volunteers who participated in the program
01:16:52that they are now eligible for full va medical benefits
01:16:58but once again they trusted the army to actually contact the test vets
01:17:06when we won the case in 2017 i said man we beat them we beat them
01:17:17but
01:17:19it's a very uh shallow victory
01:17:24when the government don't follow through and and do what they were ordered
01:17:28then what what recourse were you going to go i don't feel like they tried to contact the people
01:17:36to what extent did they try to reach out to all the vets that went through edgewood
01:17:42i don't think they have when they've got only 80 or 90 people that has actually gotten health care
01:17:49out of 7 200 and some that went through it so where do you turn to
01:18:03after everything we learned about edgewood what concerns me most is that we come up with these rules
01:18:09codes laws just to make sure we don't repeat our darkest chapters of history
01:18:15and then we find a reason to break them to inflict harm in the name of national security how long
01:18:23until we cross that line again to justify dangerous experiments just to get ahead of our enemies
01:18:31i hope the story of edgewood teaches us that it's never worth it
01:18:42if you had three wishes you could wish for anything you wanted uh what would your three wishes be
01:18:51my one one i wish that the world would stop being like my kids and like like grown people
01:18:59while i was in the fourth grade i was asked to write an essay on my life
01:19:03the lsd is given to plans and ambitions and i said i want to become a scientist and help a
01:19:11struggling
01:19:12humanity after a long period of sleep look i've got regrets about a number of things i've done
01:19:21that would not apply to the work i did at edgewood i thought i did a pretty good job with
01:19:27that
01:19:36so
01:19:44so
01:19:45so
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