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FTR #975 Operation Mind Control, Part 2: Creating the Perfect Killer, Part 2

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This broad­cast was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: The pro­gram begins by set­ting forth pos­si­ble mind con­trol con­nec­tions to some of the “per­sons of inter­est” in Amer­i­ca’s major assas­si­na­tions.

Focus­ing ini­tial­ly on Oswald han­dler George De Mohren­schildt, the broad­cast notes that:

  1. De Mohren­schildt had appar­ent­ly been a Nazi spy in World War II, work­ing with North Amer­i­can Abwehr chief Baron Hugo May­del dur­ing the war. De Mohren­schildt had been one of Oswald’s han­dlers.
  2. De Mohren­schildt had appar­ent­ly come to have regrets about the killing, and had been writ­ing a book about the con­spir­a­cy, accord­ing to Dutch author Olt­mans.
  3. After giv­ing voice to his regrets and reser­va­tions and appar­ent­ly nam­ing CIA and FBI per­son­nel alleged­ly involved in the con­spir­a­cy, De Mohren­schildt was interned in a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal, where he appears to have been sub­ject­ed to var­i­ous forms of mind con­trol.
  4. His daugh­ter Alexan­dra opined that De Mohren­schildt shot him­self to death after receiv­ing a phone call, which she believes con­tained a hid­den cue that trig­gered his con­di­tioned sui­cide.

Next, the broad­cast high­lights some of the aspects of Sirhan Sirhan’s appar­ent pro­gram­ming at the hands of the intel­li­gence oper­a­tives who mas­ter­mind­ed the assas­si­na­tion of RFK. As dis­cussed in AFA #9, the foren­sic evi­dence dis­proves the pre­vail­ing the­o­ry of Sirhan as the killer of Robert Kennedy. In dis­cussing the appar­ent mind con­trol to which Sirhan was sub­ject­ed, we note that:

  1. There were fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent analy­ses of Sirhan from Dr. Bernard Dia­mond and Dr. Edward Simp­son.
  2. Dia­mond not­ed that Sirhan was a very easy sub­ject to hyp­no­tize and that he was also a “para­noid schiz­o­phrenic.”
  3. Simp­son not­ed that para­noid schiz­o­phren­ics are vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble to hyp­no­tize.
  4. The avail­able evi­dence sug­gests that Sirhan was under mind con­trol and that the focus of that con­di­tion­ing was to pro­pel him into self-incrim­i­na­tion.

Con­tin­u­ing explo­ration of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s mind con­trol pro­grams, the broad­cast fea­tures an inter­view with a U.S. gov­ern­ment assas­sin, termed by author Wal­ter Bowart “The Patri­ot­ic Assas­sin.”

Hav­ing been involved with the lab­o­ra­to­ry work that spawned the cre­ation of mind con­trolled assas­sins, the oper­a­tive inter­viewed by Bowart:

  1. Con­firmed that the killings of the Kennedy broth­ers and Mar­tin Luther King were acts of state. He opined that the assas­sins would have received medals.
  2. Con­firmed that the coun­try had expe­ri­enced a fas­cist coup, with the coun­try being run by a rel­a­tive hand­ful of inter­ests, with the mil­i­tary in charge.
  3. Assert­ed that many oper­a­tives in the mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty worked both for the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and for pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions, help­ing to steer pol­i­cy in the direc­tions pre­ferred by the cor­po­ra­tions and, ulti­mate­ly, retir­ing with both fed­er­al and cor­po­rate retire­ment ben­e­fits.
  4. Con­firmed the oper­a­tional use of mind con­trol in covert oper­a­tions, as well as aspects of larg­er mil­i­tary oper­a­tions.
  5. Main­tained that assas­sins did not need to be sub­ject­ed to mind con­trol to direct them to per­form their mis­sions, but that mind con­trol was nec­es­sary to keep them from remem­ber­ing what they had done.
  6. Assert­ed that, because crit­i­cal func­tions in the high-tech, nuclear state were per­formed by enlist­ed per­son­nel, mind con­trol was nec­es­sary to keep them from remem­ber­ing what they had done. The Patri­ot­ic Assas­sin assert­ed that com­mis­sioned offi­cers were depen­dent on the ben­e­fits atten­dant on that lev­el of ser­vice after retire­ment and main­tained that this was suf­fi­cient moti­va­tion to main­tain silence.
  7. Com­ment­ed that the oft-repeat­ed claim by intel­li­gence agen­cies that mind con­trol “research” had been dis­con­tin­ued was a veil for the fact that it was ful­ly oper­a­tional.
  8. Fore­shad­owed a large­ly-over­looked and pos­si­bly abortive assas­si­na­tion attempt on Jim­my Carter in 1979. Carter had stat­ed that he thought the assas­si­na­tions of Pres­i­dent Kennedy and Mar­tin Luther King had been the result of con­spir­a­cies. Short­ly after­ward, two men were arrest­ed in Los Ange­les, after cross­ing into the coun­try from Mex­i­co to mur­der Carter. The names of the con­spir­a­tors were “Ray Lee Har­vey” and “Oswal­do Ortiz”–reminiscent of the names of James Earl Ray and Lee Har­vey Oswald, the pat­sies for the mur­ders of JFK and Mar­tin Luther King.

 

 

 

Discussion

2 comments for “FTR #975 Operation Mind Control, Part 2: Creating the Perfect Killer, Part 2”

  1. Tues­day August 24 2018 was most­ly a bad news day for the belea­guered pres­i­den­cy of Don­ald Trump with
    for­mer per­son­al attor­ney Michael Cohen plead­ing guilty to tax eva­sion, bank fraud and cam­paign finance
    vio­la­tions. At the same time Trump’s for­mer cam­paign man­ag­er Paul Man­afort was found guilty of eight fraud
    charges. It will be inter­est­ing to see how main­stream and pro­gres­sive media han­dle these twin devel­op­ments.

    On CNN for­mer Repub­li­can sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum thought the big sto­ry of the day was the first degree mur­der
    charge laid against an “ille­gal” Mex­i­can migrant work­er fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of a deceased white Iowa col­lege
    girl Mol­lie Tib­betts who van­ished a month ago while jog­ging in the evening. Sad out­come or ral­ly­ing cry for
    Trump and his anti-immi­grant and racist dead enders?

    Author­i­ties stud­ied a par­tic­u­lar res­i­den­tial secu­ri­ty video for two weeks (quite a long time) and con­clud­ed
    Christhi­an Rivera pur­sued the jog­ger in his black Mal­ibu SUV, ran beside her then abduct­ed the young lady.
    Accord­ing to law enforce­ment Rivera “blocked his mem­o­ry” regard­ing what hap­pened next but came to at an
    inter­sec­tion with the dead stu­den­t’s bloody body in his car. Author­i­ties say he car­ried the body into a corn­field and cov­ered her up. He led police and FBI to the exact loca­tion.

    Yet the own­ers of Yarabee farms who, accord­ing to the Dai­ly Mail have con­nec­tions to both the vic­tim AND the
    Iowa state Repub­li­can par­ty, claim Rivera was an employ­ee in good stand­ing vet­ted by the gov­ern­ment E‑Verify
    site.

    “It seemed that he fol­lowed her and seemed to be drawn to her on that par­tic­u­lar day” accord­ing to the Iowa
    Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tions spokesman.

    While we don’t know exact­ly how Mol­lie Tib­betts’ death came about there are per­haps some con­nec­tions here
    to mind con­trol. The mem­o­ry blocks, black­ing out and being drawn to the vic­tim resem­bles Sirhan Sirhan on
    the night of the Robert Kennedy assas­si­na­tion. A Chevy Mal­ibu SUV is a pret­ty nice car for a farm work­er liv­ing
    at a work camp to be dri­ving. And a neigh­bour saw a black SUV cir­cling the vic­tim’s house much lat­er (11:30 pm
    to 1 am) than the time­line which ini­tial­ly report­ed her dis­ap­pear­ing between 7:30 pm and 9 pm.

    The fam­i­ly of Ms. Tib­betts met with Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence recent­ly. If the Trump admin­is­tra­tion can push
    the “ille­gal Mex­i­can mur­der­er” angle in the com­ing days through right wing media and pro­pa­gan­da trolls maybe
    Trump rides out the bad news from the courts by exploit­ing the mur­der of a pret­ty white col­lege farm girl.

    Posted by Dennis | August 22, 2018, 12:51 am
  2. Here’s an arti­cle that’s rel­e­vant for any sto­ry involv­ing gov­ern­ment mind-con­trol exper­i­ments and the cre­ation of assas­sins: One of the jurors who found Whitey Bul­ger guilty in 2013 for rack­e­teer­ing and mur­der is now express­ing regrets that she vot­ed to con­vict him. Why? Because the juror, Janet Uhlar, has sub­se­quent­ly learned about the secret CIA exper­i­ments on Bul­ger in the late 1950s that involved admin­is­ter­ing mas­sive dos­es of LSD to Bul­ger. He was report­ed­ly dosed more than 50 times. Uhlar learned about these exper­i­ments direct­ly from Bul­ger from the more than 70 let­ters he wrote to her from prison. Bul­ger’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in these exper­i­ments was nev­er men­tioned dur­ing his fed­er­al tri­al and Uhlar is assert­ing that, if she knew then what she knows now, she nev­er would have vot­ed to con­vict him on any of the mur­der charges.

    So why would Bul­ger’s his­to­ry as a secret par­tic­i­pant in CIA exper­i­ments with LSD cause Uhlar to vote not to con­vict on the mur­der charges? Well, fol­low­ing Bul­ger’s con­vic­tion, Uhlar start­ed writ­ing to Bul­ger in prison because she dis­turbed by how so much of the tes­ti­mo­ny against Bul­ger was com­ing from oth­er vio­lent crim­i­nals who were get­ting reduced sen­tences for their tes­ti­mo­ny against Bul­ger. Bul­ger began reply­ing to her let­ters and that’s how Uhlar learned about the hor­ri­ble night­mares and sleep dif­fi­cul­ties he con­tin­ued to expe­ri­ence as a result of those exper­i­ments. Bul­ger shared with her expe­ri­ences like when the the tech­ni­cians who would mon­i­tor his response to the LSD, ask­ing him ques­tions such as, “Would you ever kill any­one? Etc., etc.”

    It was after learn­ing about MK-Ultra direct­ly from Bul­ger over mail that Uhlar trav­eled to Bul­ger’s prison to meet with him direct­ly and learn more about the exper­i­ments. She also began study­ing on her own about the his­to­ry of the MK-ULTRA pro­gram, includ­ing review­ing the 1977 hear­ings by the U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Intel­li­gence, which looked into MK-ULTRA fol­low­ing the first pub­lic dis­clo­sures of the top-secret pro­gram. As Uhlar recounts, the hear­ings includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from CIA direc­tor Stans­field Turn­er, who acknowl­edged evi­dence show­ing that the agency had been search­ing for a drug that could pre­pare some­one for “debil­i­tat­ing an indi­vid­ual or even killing anoth­er per­son.” That’s all part of why Uhlar is ques­tion­ing whether or not Bul­ger should have actu­al­ly been con­vict­ed for mur­der. Yes, he mur­dered those peo­ple, but he was also the sub­ject of a gov­ern­ment pro­gram that was try­ing to cre­at­ed drugged assas­sins. It’s cer­tain­ly a com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion for a juror to nav­i­gate.

    Uhlar has sub­se­quent­ly read the new book Poi­son­er in Chief: Sid­ney Got­tlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Con­trol (pub­lished 2019) about Sid­ney Got­tlieb and the MK-ULTRA exper­i­ments he con­duct­ed which has only strength­ened her views that he was wrong con­vict­ed.

    This is prob­a­bly a good time to recall that FBI com­mit­ted those mur­ders while he was an FBI infor­mant in Boston and the FBI appeared to know about it and did­n’t stop him. In FTR #607, Daniel Hop­sick­er dis­cuss­es this case and notes that it was none oth­er than Robert Mueller who was the US Attor­ney in charge of oper­a­tions in Boston dur­ing this time. In FTR#749 (side 2), John Lof­tus talks about his own inter­ac­tions with one of the key cor­rupt fig­ures involved with Bul­ger’s rela­tion­ship with the Boston FBI: Dick Sul­li­van. Sul­li­van was Lof­tus’s boss at one point at the Jus­tice Depart­ment (also note Sul­li­van’s role in the white­wash­ing of post-WWII fas­cists’ back­grounds so they could work for the US). As Lof­tus recounts, Sul­li­van — who was a secret IRA mem­ber — passed along the name of an IRA infor­mant to the FBI to Bul­ger who sub­se­quent­ly had this infor­mant killed.

    So the more we learn about the life of sto­ry of Whitey Bul­ger the more it appears that he was far more than just a mur­der­ous mob boss. He was a mur­der­ous mob boss who was also part of secret gov­ern­ment exper­i­ments designed to make peo­ple into killers and he appar­ent­ly killed with the gov­ern­men­t’s knowl­edge. It’s a pret­ty unortho­dox mur­der defense but a hard defense to ignore:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    After learn­ing of Whitey Bul­ger LSD tests, juror has regrets

    By MICHAEL REZENDES
    02/18/2020 12:32:38 CST

    EASTHAM, Mass. (AP) — One of the jurors who con­vict­ed noto­ri­ous crime boss James “Whitey” Bul­ger says she regrets her deci­sion after learn­ing that he was an unwit­ting par­tic­i­pant in a covert CIA exper­i­ment with LSD.

    Bul­ger ter­ror­ized Boston from the 1970s into the 1990s with a cam­paign of mur­der, extor­tion, and drug traf­fick­ing, then spent 16 years on the lam after he was tipped to his pend­ing arrest.

    In2013, Janet Uhlar was one of 12 jurors who found Bul­ger guilty in a mas­sive rack­e­teer­ing case, includ­ing involve­ment in 11 mur­ders, even after hear­ing evi­dence that the mob­ster was helped by cor­rupt agents in the Boston office of the FBI.

    But now Uhlar says she regrets vot­ing to con­vict Bul­ger on any of the mur­der charges.

    Her regret stems from a cache of more than 70 let­ters Bul­ger wrote to her from prison. In some, he describes his unwit­ting par­tic­i­pa­tion in a secret CIA exper­i­ment with LSD. In a des­per­ate search for a mind con­trol drug in the late 1950s, the agency dosed Bul­ger with the pow­er­ful hal­lu­cino­gen more than 50 times when he was serv­ing his first stretch in prison — some­thing his lawyers nev­er brought up in his fed­er­al tri­al.

    “Had I known, I would have absolute­ly held off on the mur­der charges,” Uhlar told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press in a recent inter­view. “He didn’t mur­der pri­or to the LSD. His brain may have been altered, so how could you say he was real­ly guilty?” At the same time, Uhlar says she would have vot­ed to con­vict Bul­ger on the long list of oth­er crim­i­nal counts, mean­ing he still would like­ly have died in prison.

    Uhlar has spo­ken pub­licly about her regret before but says her belief that the gang­ster was wrong­ly con­vict­ed on the mur­der charges was rein­forced after read­ing a new book by Brown Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Stephen Kinz­er: “Poi­son­er in Chief: Sid­ney Got­tlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Con­trol.” The book digs into the dark tale of the CIA’s for­mer chief chemist and his attempts to devel­op mind con­trol tech­niques by giv­ing LSD and oth­er drugs to unsus­pect­ing indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing col­leagues, and observ­ing the effects.

    “It was encour­ag­ing to know I wasn’t los­ing my mind, think­ing this was impor­tant,” Uhlar said. “It told me, this is huge. I mean, how many lives were affect­ed by this? We have no idea.”

    Gottlieb’s secret pro­gram, known as MK-ULTRA, enlist­ed doc­tors and oth­er sub­con­trac­tors to admin­is­ter LSD in large dos­es to pris­on­ers, addicts and oth­ers unlike­ly to com­plain. In Bulger’s case, the mob­ster and fel­low inmates were offered reduced time for their par­tic­i­pa­tion and told they would be tak­ing part in med­ical research into a cure for schiz­o­phre­nia.

    “Appealed to our sense of doing some­thing worth­while for soci­ety,” Bul­ger wrote in a let­ter to Uhlar reviewed by the AP.

    But noth­ing could have been fur­ther from the truth.

    “The CIA mind con­trol pro­gram known as MK-ULTRA involved the most extreme exper­i­ments on human beings ever con­duct­ed by any agency of the U.S. gov­ern­ment,” Kinz­er said. “Dur­ing its peak in the 1950s, that pro­gram and it’s direc­tor, Sid­ney Got­tlieb, left behind a trail of bro­ken bod­ies and shat­tered minds across three con­ti­nents.”

    After Bul­ger was found guilty by Uhlar and the oth­er jurors, a fed­er­al judge sen­tenced him to two life terms plus five years. But his life behind bars end­ed a lit­tle more than a year ago, at age 89, when he was beat­en to death by fel­low inmates short­ly after arriv­ing in his wheel­chair at the Hazel­ton fed­er­al prison in Bruce­ton Mills, West Vir­ginia. No crim­i­nal charges have been filed.

    Although much had been writ­ten about the CIA’s mind con­trol exper­i­ments before Bulger’s tri­al, Uhlar said she knew noth­ing about them until she began cor­re­spond­ing with the renowned gang­ster fol­low­ing his con­vic­tion.

    Uhlar start­ed writ­ing Bul­ger, she said, because she was trou­bled by the fact that much of the evi­dence against him came through tes­ti­mo­ny by for­mer crim­i­nal asso­ciates who were also killers and had received reduced sen­tences in exchange for tes­ti­fy­ing against their for­mer part­ner in crime.

    “When I left the tri­al, I had more ques­tions,” she said.

    After Bul­ger start­ed return­ing her let­ters, Uhlar noticed he often dat­ed them with the time he had start­ed writ­ing in his tight cur­sive style. “He always seemed to be writ­ing at one, two, or three in the morn­ing and when I asked him why, he said it was because of the hal­lu­ci­na­tions,” Uhlar said.

    When Uhlar asked him to explain, Bul­ger revealed what he had already told many oth­ers: that since tak­ing part in the LSD exper­i­ments at a fed­er­al prison in Atlanta, he’d been plagued by night­mares and grue­some hal­lu­ci­na­tions and was unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

    “Sleep was full of vio­lent night­mares and wake up every hour or so — still that way — since ’57,” he wrote.

    “On the Rock at times felt sure going insane,” he wrote in anoth­er let­ter, refer­ring to the infa­mous for­mer prison on Alca­traz Island, in San Fran­cis­co Bay, where he was trans­ferred from Atlanta. “Audi­to­ry & visu­al hal­lu­ci­na­tions and vio­lent night­mares — still have them — always slept with lights on helps when I wake up about every hour from night­mares.”

    The mob­ster also recalled the super­vis­ing physi­cian, the late Carl Pfeif­fer of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, and the tech­ni­cians who would mon­i­tor his response to the LSD, ask­ing him ques­tions such as, “Would you ever kill any­one? Etc., etc.”

    That ques­tion struck a nerve with Uhlar. After hear­ing from Bul­ger about MK-ULTRA, “as if I should have known about it,” she vis­it­ed him at a Flori­da fed­er­al prison on three occa­sions to dis­cuss the exper­i­ments and start­ed read­ing every­thing she could find about them.

    At one point, she reviewed the 1977 hear­ings by the U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Intel­li­gence, which was look­ing into MK-ULTRA fol­low­ing the first pub­lic dis­clo­sures of the top-secret pro­gram.

    The hear­ings includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from CIA direc­tor Stans­field Turn­er, who acknowl­edged evi­dence show­ing that the agency had been search­ing for a drug that could pre­pare some­one for “debil­i­tat­ing an indi­vid­ual or even killing anoth­er per­son.”

    “That’s just hor­ri­fy­ing, in my opin­ion,” Uhlar said. “It opens up the ques­tion of whether he was respon­si­ble for the mur­ders he com­mit­ted.”

    Accord­ing to at least two of the sev­er­al books writ­ten about Bul­ger and his life of crime, asso­ciates includ­ing cor­rupt for­mer FBI agent John Mor­ris said they assumed Bul­ger would use the LSD exper­i­ments to mount an insan­i­ty defense, if he were ever caught and tried.

    But in 2013 Bulger’s Boston attor­neys, J.W. Car­ney Jr. and Hank Bren­nan, unveiled a nov­el defense in which they admit­ted Bul­ger was a crim­i­nal who made “mil­lions and mil­lions of dol­lars” from his gang­land enter­prise, but was enabled by cor­rupt law enforce­ment offi­cers, espe­cial­ly those in Boston office of the FBI.

    Nei­ther Car­ney nor Bren­nan would com­ment on their deci­sion — attor­ney client priv­i­lege out­lasts a client’s death. But Antho­ny Car­di­nale, a Boston attor­ney who has rep­re­sent­ed numer­ous orga­nized crime defen­dants, said he would have opt­ed for an insan­i­ty defense, in part because of the abun­dant evi­dence against Bul­ger.

    “I would have had him come into court like Har­vey Wein­stein, all disheveled, and in a wheel­chair,” he said.

    Still, Car­di­nale acknowl­edged there would have been chal­lenges to pre­sent­ing an insan­i­ty defense, includ­ing the fact that Bul­ger spent 16 years out­wit­ting sev­er­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, before he was cap­tured in 2011 in San­ta Mon­i­ca, Calif., where he’d been liv­ing qui­et­ly with his long­time girl­friend while on the FBI’s Ten Most Want­ed List.

    “The prob­lem is, he lived for a very long time on the lam in a very secre­tive and a very smart way,” Car­di­nale said. “But that doesn’t dimin­ish the notion that, based on the LSD exper­i­ments, and the dos­es he was expe­ri­enc­ing, he could have con­vinced him­self of things that were not true, includ­ing that he had immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion and could do what­ev­er he want­ed.”

    To his dying day, Bul­ger insist­ed he’d received crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty from a deceased fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who once head­ed the New Eng­land Orga­nized Crime Strike Force.

    John Bradley, a for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor and assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney, agreed that defense lawyers would have faced high hur­dles wag­ing an insan­i­ty defense, not­ing that most end in con­vic­tions.

    “The flip side is that jurors are some­times swayed by moral­i­ty more than legal­i­ty,” he said. “The whole shtick that the gov­ern­ment played a role in cre­at­ing this mon­ster, uses him as an infor­mant and then goes after him — that’s an argu­ment that could affect one or two jurors.”

    And it only takes one to vote not guilty on all the crim­i­nal charges to pro­duce a hung jury, Bradley not­ed, forc­ing pros­e­cu­tors to decide whether to retry a case.

    Giv­en Bulger’s decades as a crime boss who cor­rupt­ed the Boston office of the FBI, pay­ing cash and doing favors in exchange for infor­ma­tion that helped him thwart mul­ti­ple inves­ti­ga­tions, a retri­al would have been a near cer­tain­ty. Nev­er­the­less, Car­di­nale said, a hung jury in the Bul­ger case “would have been a mon­ster vic­to­ry” for the defense.

    Even if Bul­ger were con­vict­ed on the oth­er crim­i­nal charges and received a sen­tence that would have kept him behind bars for life, a refusal to find him guilty on the mur­der charges would have meant anguish for fam­i­ly mem­bers of his vic­tims.

    “As in any case involv­ing a trag­ic mur­der, a con­vic­tion of the per­pe­tra­tor helps fam­i­ly mem­ber obtain clo­sure and move on with their lives,” said Paul V. Kel­ly, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who has rep­re­sent­ed the fam­i­ly of one of Bulger’s mur­der vic­tims. “An acquit­tal of Whitey Bul­ger on the mur­der charges would have just caused addi­tion­al pain and anguish.”

    Uhlar has writ­ten about the Bul­ger tri­al in “The Truth be Damned,” a fic­tion­al­ized account she pub­lished in 2018 and adver­tis­es on her web­site. She also gives occa­sion­al talks on the tri­al at com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters and libraries.

    Dur­ing her cor­re­spon­dence and vis­its with Bul­ger, Uhlar said, she grew fond of the gang­ster, though he often warned her that he was a crim­i­nal and “mas­ter manip­u­la­tor.” When asked if Bul­ger might have manip­u­lat­ed her, she said, “I’ve asked myself that many times. I’ll fin­ish read­ing a let­ter and say, ‘Could he have?’ “

    ...

    ———–

    “After learn­ing of Whitey Bul­ger LSD tests, juror has regrets” by MICHAEL REZENDES; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 02/18/2020

    Uhlar has spo­ken pub­licly about her regret before but says her belief that the gang­ster was wrong­ly con­vict­ed on the mur­der charges was rein­forced after read­ing a new book by Brown Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Stephen Kinz­er: “Poi­son­er in Chief: Sid­ney Got­tlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Con­trol.” The book digs into the dark tale of the CIA’s for­mer chief chemist and his attempts to devel­op mind con­trol tech­niques by giv­ing LSD and oth­er drugs to unsus­pect­ing indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing col­leagues, and observ­ing the effects.”

    How cul­pa­ble is a mob boss for the mur­ders they com­mit when they were simul­ta­ne­ous­ly part of a secret gov­ern­ment exper­i­ment to cre­ate killers? It’s quite a ques­tion for a juror to grap­ple and Janet Uhlar has been grap­pling with it ever since the 2013 tri­al. And the more she has learned the more con­vinced she has become that Bul­ger’s MK-ULTRA exper­i­ments raised major ques­tions about Bul­ger’s cul­pa­bil­i­ty in those mur­ders:

    ...
    “The CIA mind con­trol pro­gram known as MK-ULTRA involved the most extreme exper­i­ments on human beings ever con­duct­ed by any agency of the U.S. gov­ern­ment,” Kinz­er said. “Dur­ing its peak in the 1950s, that pro­gram and it’s direc­tor, Sid­ney Got­tlieb, left behind a trail of bro­ken bod­ies and shat­tered minds across three con­ti­nents.”

    ...

    When Uhlar asked him to explain, Bul­ger revealed what he had already told many oth­ers: that since tak­ing part in the LSD exper­i­ments at a fed­er­al prison in Atlanta, he’d been plagued by night­mares and grue­some hal­lu­ci­na­tions and was unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

    “Sleep was full of vio­lent night­mares and wake up every hour or so — still that way — since ’57,” he wrote.

    “On the Rock at times felt sure going insane,” he wrote in anoth­er let­ter, refer­ring to the infa­mous for­mer prison on Alca­traz Island, in San Fran­cis­co Bay, where he was trans­ferred from Atlanta. “Audi­to­ry & visu­al hal­lu­ci­na­tions and vio­lent night­mares — still have them — always slept with lights on helps when I wake up about every hour from night­mares.”

    The mob­ster also recalled the super­vis­ing physi­cian, the late Carl Pfeif­fer of Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, and the tech­ni­cians who would mon­i­tor his response to the LSD, ask­ing him ques­tions such as, “Would you ever kill any­one? Etc., etc.”

    That ques­tion struck a nerve with Uhlar. After hear­ing from Bul­ger about MK-ULTRA, “as if I should have known about it,” she vis­it­ed him at a Flori­da fed­er­al prison on three occa­sions to dis­cuss the exper­i­ments and start­ed read­ing every­thing she could find about them.

    At one point, she reviewed the 1977 hear­ings by the U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Intel­li­gence, which was look­ing into MK-ULTRA fol­low­ing the first pub­lic dis­clo­sures of the top-secret pro­gram.

    The hear­ings includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from CIA direc­tor Stans­field Turn­er, who acknowl­edged evi­dence show­ing that the agency had been search­ing for a drug that could pre­pare some­one for “debil­i­tat­ing an indi­vid­ual or even killing anoth­er per­son.”

    “That’s just hor­ri­fy­ing, in my opin­ion,” Uhlar said. “It opens up the ques­tion of whether he was respon­si­ble for the mur­ders he com­mit­ted.”

    ...

    To his dying day, Bul­ger insist­ed he’d received crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty from a deceased fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who once head­ed the New Eng­land Orga­nized Crime Strike Force.
    ...

    “To his dying day, Bul­ger insist­ed he’d received crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty from a deceased fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who once head­ed the New Eng­land Orga­nized Crime Strike Force.”

    Claims of crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty were a big part of Bul­ger’s defense. Inter­est­ing­ly, he was nev­er allowed to actu­al­ly bring up these claims of crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty dur­ing his 2013 tri­al which was the bases for his 2015 appeal after get­ting con­vict­ed. The Supreme Court reject­ed those appeals in 2016. But as the fol­low­ing 2013 arti­cle about the legal wran­gling over whether or not he would be allowed to make the crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty claims dur­ing his tri­al reveals, part of the rea­son pros­e­cu­tors reject­ed the crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty defense was because it would imply a fed­er­al agent had giv­en Bul­ger a license for mur­der. It’s the kind of legal argu­ment that become rather iron­ic in the con­text of Bul­ger’s his­to­ry as a sub­ject in secret gov­ern­ment exper­i­ments to cre­ate drugged up mur­der­ers:

    Reuters

    U.S. chal­lenges accused mob­ster Bul­ger’s immu­ni­ty defense

    Scott Mal­one
    Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013 / 11:31 AM

    BOSTON (Reuters) — Pros­e­cu­tors urged a fed­er­al judge on Wednes­day to reject accused Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger’s claim that he can­not be tried for 19 killings because for­mer pros­e­cu­tors gave him immu­ni­ty.

    Bul­ger, who fled Boston in 1995 after receiv­ing a tip from a cor­rupt FBI agent that arrest was immi­nent, has argued that a for­mer top fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, now deceased, promised not to pros­e­cute him for crimes com­mit­ted by the “Win­ter Hill” gang he is accused of lead­ing. Bul­ger says the immu­ni­ty was grant­ed because he pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion on rival crime orga­ni­za­tions.

    At a pre-tri­al hear­ing on Wednes­day, pros­e­cu­tors chal­lenged that argu­ment, say­ing it would mean for­mer Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jere­mi­ah O’Sullivan, now deceased, essen­tial­ly would have been autho­riz­ing Bul­ger to com­mit mur­der.

    “Mr. O’Sullivan does not have that author­i­ty. As a mat­ter of law, an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney does not have author­i­ty to allow the killing of U.S. cit­i­zens,” said Zachary Hafer, one of the assis­tant U.S. attor­neys pros­e­cut­ing the case. “Any con­tract between Mr. O’Sullivan and Mr. Bul­ger, as it con­tem­plat­ed mur­der, would be void.”

    Bulger’s attor­ney, J.W. Car­ney of the Boston law firm Car­ney & Bassil, coun­tered that an immu­ni­ty claim was pos­si­ble, but that its valid­i­ty should be deter­mined at Bulger’s tri­al, sched­uled to begin in June.

    “James Bul­ger will tes­ti­fy that he was giv­en immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion by Jere­mi­ah O’Sullivan,” Car­ney said at U.S. Dis­trict Court in Boston.

    Car­ney pro­vid­ed no details on Bulger’s agree­ment with O’Sullivan, say­ing that evi­dence would be best pre­sent­ed at tri­al.

    BULGER ‘NEVER AN INFORMANT’

    After the hear­ing, Car­ney told reporters that Bul­ger had nev­er been an infor­mant, though he declined to say why pros­e­cu­tors would have giv­en his client immu­ni­ty if he had not exchanged infor­ma­tion.

    “James Bul­ger was nev­er an infor­mant to the FBI or any­body else at any time,” Car­ney said. “It is not the rea­son he received immu­ni­ty.”

    Law enforce­ment offi­cials have repeat­ed­ly described Bul­ger as part of a net­work of infor­mants in the Boston mob.

    Car­ney told reporters he would not dis­close the rea­son for Bulger’s immu­ni­ty before tri­al.

    ...

    “This fact of Bul­ger say­ing he had immu­ni­ty is sick. That does not allow you to com­mit mur­der,” said San­dra Patient, of Man­ches­ter, New Hamp­shire, whose uncle, Arthur “Bucky” Bar­rett was among Bulger’s alleged vic­tims. “There is no way this guy is going to walk on 19 mur­ders.”

    Pros­e­cu­tors argued in court papers that Bulger’s deci­sion to go into hid­ing under­cuts his claim that he had a deal with O’Sullivan, who died in 2009, pro­tect­ed him from pros­e­cu­tion.

    O’Sullivan denied grant­i­ng immu­ni­ty to Bul­ger or any oth­er mem­bers of his Win­ter Hill gang in 2003 con­gres­sion­al tes­ti­mo­ny, accord­ing to court papers.

    Bulger’s case, which inspired Mar­tin Scorsese’s 2006 Acad­e­my Award-win­ning film “The Depart­ed,” stands as a black mark on the record of Boston law enforce­ment, with police of Irish descent col­lab­o­rat­ing with crim­i­nals who shared their eth­nic back­ground to under­cut non-Irish gangs.

    ————

    “U.S. chal­lenges accused mob­ster Bul­ger’s immu­ni­ty defense” by Scott Mal­one; Reuters; 02/13/2013

    “Bul­ger, who fled Boston in 1995 after receiv­ing a tip from a cor­rupt FBI agent that arrest was immi­nent, has argued that a for­mer top fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor, now deceased, promised not to pros­e­cute him for crimes com­mit­ted by the “Win­ter Hill” gang he is accused of lead­ing. Bul­ger says the immu­ni­ty was grant­ed because he pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion on rival crime orga­ni­za­tions.”

    Crim­i­nal immu­ni­ty for pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion in rival crime orga­ni­za­tions. That’s what Bul­ger’s pri­ma­ry defense was back in 2013. But pros­e­cu­tors say it’s not pos­si­ble the fed­er­al agent, for­mer Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jere­mi­ah O’Sullivan, could have pos­si­bly grant­ed that immu­ni­ty because it would be a license to mur­der:

    ...
    At a pre-tri­al hear­ing on Wednes­day, pros­e­cu­tors chal­lenged that argu­ment, say­ing it would mean for­mer Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Jere­mi­ah O’Sullivan, now deceased, essen­tial­ly would have been autho­riz­ing Bul­ger to com­mit mur­der.

    “Mr. O’Sullivan does not have that author­i­ty. As a mat­ter of law, an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney does not have author­i­ty to allow the killing of U.S. cit­i­zens,” said Zachary Hafer, one of the assis­tant U.S. attor­neys pros­e­cut­ing the case. “Any con­tract between Mr. O’Sullivan and Mr. Bul­ger, as it con­tem­plat­ed mur­der, would be void.”

    ...

    Pros­e­cu­tors argued in court papers that Bulger’s deci­sion to go into hid­ing under­cuts his claim that he had a deal with O’Sullivan, who died in 2009, pro­tect­ed him from pros­e­cu­tion.

    O’Sullivan denied grant­i­ng immu­ni­ty to Bul­ger or any oth­er mem­bers of his Win­ter Hill gang in 2003 con­gres­sion­al tes­ti­mo­ny, accord­ing to court papers.
    ...

    Inter­est­ing­ly, Bul­ger’s lawyer was also argu­ing that Bul­ger was nev­er an infor­mant and would­n’t say why the immu­ni­ty was grant­ed and the rea­son would­n’t be exposed before the tri­al:

    ...
    After the hear­ing, Car­ney told reporters that Bul­ger had nev­er been an infor­mant, though he declined to say why pros­e­cu­tors would have giv­en his client immu­ni­ty if he had not exchanged infor­ma­tion.

    “James Bul­ger was nev­er an infor­mant to the FBI or any­body else at any time,” Car­ney said. “It is not the rea­son he received immu­ni­ty.”

    Law enforce­ment offi­cials have repeat­ed­ly described Bul­ger as part of a net­work of infor­mants in the Boston mob.

    Car­ney told reporters he would not dis­close the rea­son for Bulger’s immu­ni­ty before tri­al.
    ...

    It was quite a tan­ta­liz­ing dan­gle by Bul­ger’s attor­ney. But we nev­er got to learn the alleged rea­son for the immu­ni­ty because Bul­ger’s defense was­n’t allowed to bring up this defense. It would be inter­est­ing to learn if Janet Uhlar ever spoke with Bul­ger about his immu­ni­ty claims. Could the immu­ni­ty defense have involved some sort of gov­ern­ment rela­tion­ship Bul­ger devel­oped in the late 1950s dur­ing his MK-ULTRA exper­i­ment days? We have no idea. We just know that one of the most noto­ri­ous mob boss killers of the 20th cen­tu­ry was secret­ly part of a gov­ern­ment exper­i­ment to cre­ate killers and he appar­ent­ly did a lot of killing with the gov­ern­men­t’s knowl­edge and made claims of immu­ni­ty.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 19, 2020, 4:51 pm

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