The Wright Patt Connection, Part 2 — BONUS EDITION

Has this ever happened to you? You’re writing a blog post, and you’re all in-the-moment and everything. It’s been a whole year since you’ve written an update, and you can’t wait to share some stuff you’ve found out. PLUS you’re relearning the software, including the changes that WordPress has introduced since you last posted, but you manage. Finally, you hit the “SEND” button and it’s up. You pour yourself a glass of zin (the red kind, not that pink stuff) and settle in to watch something mindless: Creature from the Black Lagoon. You feel nothing but respect and empathy for the so-called monster. You go to bed, dream your sweet little unicorn dreams, wake up, and then, OH MY GOD, you realize that you forgot to include something in your blog post. Something huge and important. Something so big, you’ve practically buried the lede. Has this happened to you too? No? I’m all alone on this?

So, I guess it’s official: I’m human. Let’s proceed as if I meant to make this a two-parter all along, shall we?

Do you remember how I’d visited UCLA last year and went through documents from the files of Louis Jolyon West, one of the most well-known of the MKULTRA researchers who was also an officer—a major—at Lackland AFB in San Antonio? Well, a few of those documents had something to do with Wright Patterson AFB. Here are a couple additions to the list I’d started in part 1 regarding why I think Wright Patterson was involved in MKULTRA.

6. In October 1955, Wright Patterson sponsored a classified meeting on psychochemicals, which West attended.

 That’s right. Wright Patterson AFB was the venue of choice for a meeting on psychochemicals that took place on October 4, 1955. According to Louis Jolyon West, who was also there, attendees were required to have a Top Secret security clearance.

One of the sponsors of the meeting was the Air Research and Development Command, part of the U.S. Air Force. (St. Clair Switzer had served a short stint with the ARDC in Baltimore, from August to December 1951.) The second sponsor was the Army Chemical Corps, the folks who were based out of Edgewood Arsenal and who, I’m guessing, most likely conducted the germ warfare experiments, gosh, just two months prior at Wright Patt. What an exciting year 1955 turned out to be! Wouldn’t you love to see the day planner for someone who was in the top brass?

August: Release the microbes!

October: LSD, baby!!

West, who attended the meeting principally as an observer for the USAF surgeon general, described its objective this way:

“Its purpose was to review recent advances in the field of neuropharmacology that have led to the development of drugs which produce significant alterations in personality, and to discuss the possible uses of these chemical agents in furtherance of the mission of the United States Air Force.”

On the first page of the report, West mentions the work of Amedeo S. Marrazzi, who was identified as the chief of the Clinical Research Division of the Army Chemical Corps. Dr. Marrazzi’s name became known publicly in 1975 for LSD experiments that had ended badly while he was at the University of Minnesota. It appears West and Marrazzi hit it off at the Wright Patt meeting, because West received a letter from Marrazzi shortly after, making plans for future interactions.

I’m including a link to the entire report. It’s interesting to see how members of the Air Force—and the Army—viewed LSD and other psychochemicals as potentially useful in the nation’s defense.

7. Neil Burch wrote a letter to Louis Jolyon West while Burch was working at Wright Patterson’s Aero Medical Laboratory.

Neil Burch was a psychiatrist and researcher who has been identified by authors Colin Ross, M.D. (The CIA Doctors), and John Marks (The Search for the Manchurian Candidate) as being associated with MKULTRA and the military.

In December 1955, Burch, who was working at Wright Patterson’s Aero Medical Laboratory, wrote a letter to Jolly West, when Burch would have been 31 years old. (My hunch is that he must have met West during the October meeting on psychochemicals.) Among other things, he discusses his work in the laboratory and his interest in “continuing our research in an academic setting.”

It looks as though Burch’s dream was realized.

Marks included Burch’s name in a list of “well-known researchers” whose LSD work was supported by “military security agencies.” By then, Burch was affiliated with Baylor University, and after Burch’s name, Marks added that he “performed later experiments for the CIA.”

A July 1975 UPI article backs up Marks’ assertion:

“In Houston, Neil Burch, director of the psychophysiology division for the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences, said the CIA funded a project that involved volunteer Baylor University medical students taking small amounts of LSD.

‘The CIA was concerned that certain elements in this country might dump LSD into the water supply of a community,’ he said.

Burch said the experiments began in the late 1950s. He said he participated in the program and once swallowed 20 micrograms of the hallucinogenic drug.

‘Thirty minutes after taking it, the drug started to have an effect on me. My sensitivity to flickering lights, for example, was increased. That was exactly the type of thing we were trying to find out.’”

Ross wrote in his book that Burch and another colleague had been the recipient of $300K worth of Air Force contracts in hallucinogens from 1956 through 1961.

Here’s a copy of Burch’s letter:

So what do you think? Do these two documents strengthen the argument that Wright Patterson AFB was involved with MKULTRA?