MK ULTRA has its roots in Nazi Germany. Third Reich scientists were consumed with experimenting to test the limits of human mental endurance. Once World War II ended, the United States raced the Soviet Union to see which could collect more of the Fatherland's brilliant scientists. Operation Paperclip was enacted to ensure that the scientists recruited by America would not be burdened by their Nazi pasts; indeed even the name of the operation referred to the new identities that were paperclipped to the scientists dossiers. The U.S. spirited away more than 200 German scientists, many of them rocket experts like Wernher von Braun. But a sizable number had expertise in the fields of torture and brainwashing. They were a perfect fit for the MK ULTRA and its predecessors, Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke.

MK ULTRA was given a wide berth at the CIA and afforded six percent of the agency's operating budget, a large expenditure for such a new, untested program. One early memo summarized the project's goal: Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?

Its chilling to think that a nation founded on liberty and freedom from tyranny would be so interested in exploring such inimical concepts like total subjugation and abdication of an individuals free willand that the government wanted this power so badly that it was willing to employ such reprehensible cohorts as Nazi Germans in its pursuit.