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(Estimated Pub Date) Artichoke Medical Report by (Deleted)

Central Intelligence Agency · 1954-09-01 · 10 pages · text by GLM-OCR

This Central Intelligence Agency document, estimated to date from September 1954, is a medical report by a redacted author on ARTICHOKE team interrogations. It describes examinations of subjects in late August, in which injected solutions were used to induce detachment and fantasy states so that case officers could question them. The report judges the subjects probably truthful and questions one subject's value for legal proceedings. It concludes that ARTICHOKE techniques are a valuable support weapon.

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1. Subject is a cooperative and on his three meetings, which was held on 29 August from two o'clock until five o'clock, his life history was discussed. Since his history has been previously recorded, no comments will be made about this. His speech was free, unguarded, and frank. He very definitely gives the impression of an individual who, while somewhat reckful of authority, is quite acquiescent to it. He is a dependent individual and, although having a fair education, he has no great insight and tends to parrot much of his learning.

2. He was treated on the morning of 30 August, starting at 10:30. His blood pressure was 130/60. A complete physical examination had been done the day before which was entirely normal. He was given 20cc of the first solution and went soundly to sleep. After completing the arrangements in the room, he was shocked and an attempt was made to induce a rhabnacrya of a friend taking on him upon his return. This was unsuccessful. He immediately integrated himself and was quite aware of his surroundings. Being obvious that this attempt was unsuccessful, he was slowly even 15cc more of the first solution, followed by 1cc of the second solution. An attempt to induce a rhabnacrya was still unsuccessful. He drifted into ideological discussions along with a good deal of self-condermatory conversation. Although he was influenced by the injections and was more verbose and more frank, this was not considered a very satisfactory phase.

3. About 11:15, the injection of the 20cc of the first solution was started and, in an effort to overcome the difficulties encountered in the first two phases of the examination, this was given continuously instead of intermittently. With this type of injection, a rather satisfactory corroborate state for interrogation was obtained. The case officer then proceeded with a regular interrogation. As the termination of the interrogation, he was given lee of the first solution. Until the interview was terminated, he continued to speak freely and frankly and was much less guarded than he had been before. The last forty-five minutes of this phase was considered satisfactory.

h. In summary, Subject seemed to be a depressed, emotionally unstable, somewhat idolistic who has made one puicidal attempt of serious proportions and who may well make another. It believes that he is mistrusted, although he appears to be superficially pleasant and happy, there is a good deal of depressive material close to the surface. He does not have an appetite for the procedure, but he knows nothing about it except that he was told some blood would be drawn. He readily recognizes by the effects that he was given something

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 10 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.