Mind Control, Inc.

When you watch a film like Jacob’s Ladder (1990), you want to believe it’s nothing more than the product of a screenwriter who was half-baked on ’shrooms when he decided to write the story of a Vietnam Vet (Tim Robbins) subjected to mind control experiments carried out under the authority of the U.S. government. But after reading  Bruce Falconer’s article, “Uncle Sam’s Human Lab Rats,” in Mother Jones, I’m recalling that conspiracy theories are usually born from a kernel of truth. In this case, the truth is revealed in former test subject Frank Rochelle’s account of his time spent at Edgewood Arsenal (now known as the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense) in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

According to Falconer’s article, the U.S. government used a sort of bait-and-switch tactic to recruit its human test subjects:

In 1968, while posted at Virginia’s Fort Lee as a 20-year-old Army draftee, [Rochelle] saw a notice calling for volunteers for the Edgewood program. Among the promised incentives were relief from guard duty, the freedom to wear civilian clothes, three-day weekends, and, upon completion, a medal of commendation—all for participation in experiments that, according to the notice, would help the military test a new generation of equipment, clothing, and gas masks.

Rochelle was then asked to sign release forms and a secrecy agreement before testing began. And it was soon revealed the price Rochelle would pay for his relief from guard duty and freedom to wear jeans and a t-shirt:

Over the next two months, however, he was subjected to three rounds of experiments that, Rochelle says, left him permanently damaged. His medical records indicate that he was exposed to nonlethal incapacitating agents like DHMP and glycolate, both of which act as sedatives that produce hallucinations. In the latter case, Rochelle says he was taken into a gas chamber and strapped to a chair by two men in white lab coats, who affixed a mask to his face and told him to breathe normally. He quickly lost consciousness. According to Erspamer’s complaint, “Over the next two to three days, Frank was hallucinating and high: he thought he was three feet tall, saw animals on the walls, thought he was being pursued by a 6-foot-tall white rabbit, heard people calling his name, thought that all his freckles were bugs under his skin, and used a razor to try to cut these bugs out. No one from the clinical staff intervened on his behalf…”

What’s most astounding about Rochelle’s experience, and the 7,800 other U.S. servicemen who acted as test subjects at Edgewood, is that the government does not deny any of it happened.  Falconer cites a 1994 report from the General Accounting Office that stated:  ”The [Edgewood] program involved testing of nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psychochemicals, and irritants.” While the report says nothing of the oversized white rabbits Rochelle (and other subjects no doubt) saw, or the bugs he tried to remove from under his skin with a razor blade,  it doesn’t need to.

And if this was all done for the sake of research, and the government admits the tests were being conducted, why then were the test subjects’ records all destroyed? How can anything be learned from research that cost such a heavy mental toll if there is no documentation? Because of the lack of documentation Rochelle’s lawyer, Gordon Erspamer, faces a daunting challenge in terms of reaching any settlement for damages:

Of course, substantiating these claims is a challenge, given that most of the medical records were destroyed upon completion of the program. Rochelle’s records remain intact, but for “others we have less information,” says Erspamer. “We spent a great deal of time on that topic, and we are confident that the plaintiffs are who they say they are, were where they said they were, and got what they said they got,” in terms of exposure to experimental chemicals. “Who bears the burden on that issue when the defendants destroyed the evidence?” Erspamer asks. “They’ve put all that stuff through the shredder.” 

It appears the documents weren’t the only thing the government stuffed through the shredder.