For twenty-two years, Sidney Gottlieb ran the most secretive division inside the CIA — a program that dosed unwitting American citizens with LSD, funded psychiatric experiments on hospital patients who never consented, and developed assassination weapons against foreign leaders. His name was almost never spoken in public. His work was almost entirely destroyed before it could be investigated. What survived the shredders reveals a program so comprehensive, and authorized at such high levels, that it redefines what the Cold War actually was.
This is the full story of Sidney Gottlieb: chemist, CIA technical director, master poisoner, folk dancer, goat farmer — and the architect of MKUltra.
We cover the complete arc: his childhood in the Bronx, his recruitment into the CIA by Allen Dulles, the construction of MKUltra across 149 subprojects and 80+ institutions, the acquisition of the world's entire supply of LSD, Operation Midnight Climax in San Francisco, the death of Frank Olson, the Congo and Cuba assassination plots, what happened in the hospitals under Ewen Cameron, Richard Helms ordering the destruction of records in 1973, the Church Committee hearings, and what MKUltra's methods left behind in the world that followed.
No speculation. Everything in this documentary is sourced from declassified records, congressional testimony, and verified historical accounts.