Who hasnt talked about this in a long time. In compliance with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements, some of these records are no longer in the physical possession of the FBI, eliminating the FBI's capability to re-review and/or re-process this material. His version was a continuous-loop cassette player that would deliver messages on repeat and it's even worse than it sounds. That's absolutely the stuff of a terrifying Netflix horror series, but it was very real and it destroyed an unknown number of lives. "[35] She then cites Alfred W. McCoy: "Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method. You talked a little bit about this but what was the impact on the family when some of this news started to come out about the CIA and some of the treatment and stuff like that? Camerons techniques have no therapeutic validity whatsoever; they were comparable to Nazi medical atrocities. In addition to LSD, he experimented with various paralytic drugs such as curare and electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. Duncan: Not really, I certainly don't know anything about the treatments he was using, I didnt know anything about that. He was a person who was always looking for a way of advancing the field. Or answer questions about his motivations, whether or not he knew he was part of the CIAs mind control efforts. The only cure for mental illness, he theorized, was to eliminate its "carriers" from society altogether. Ewen Cameron experimented on people right up until he left the Allan in 1964. We shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry we did it.". A Canadian government dismissed the CIAs role as a side issue or red herring; Ottawas Justice Department denied legal responsibility, offering each victim a nugatory $20,000 nuisance payment. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text. In some cases, the same phrases reappear all through these. You know, all of us not only respected him, but loved him, and not just myself, but my brothers. Duncan: Yes. memorial page for Donald Ewen Cameron (1852-5 Feb 1892), Find a Grave Memorial ID 170055188, citing Cameron Cemetery, Indian River . Its in the Netflix show, Stranger Things: Amory: Or the hit video game Call of Duty: Ben: They're talking about it on The West Wing:C.J. And they found his work next to worthless. Ewen married Agnes Cameron (born Bell) in 1867, at age 35 at marriage place. Cameron began to base some of his notions on race, as is seen in his theories regarding the German people. From 1939 to 1943 he was professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albany Medical College, and at the Russell Sage School of Nursing, also in the Albany area. Abruptly and unexpectedly, Dr. Cameron suffered a life-ending heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967. As the CBC notes, it's sourced pretty heavily from Cameron's work, and talks about things like "deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, pain, hypnosis and narcosis," and the source of their research? ", Why MKUltra's Top Brainwashing Scientist Was A Real-Life Nightmare, "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron. Because it would seem to me, or I was concerned as a lawyer, that it might be a breach of the patient-doctor privilege. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the CIA. Cameron never got his Nobel Prize in fact, he died not long after leaving Allan Memorial Institute. Cameron also hoped to generate families capable of using authority and techniques to take measures against mental illness, which would later be apparent in Cameron's MKULTRA and MKDELTA experiments. Velma Orlikow, for instance, was dealing with postpartum depression. The personality types are as follows: Cameron believed that a society in which psychiatry built and developed the institutions of government, schools, prisons and hospitals would be one in which science triumphed over the "sick" members of society. Operating under the umbrella of MKUltra were as many as 162 sub-projects, with as many as 80 different organizations involved in research. The psychiatric community could have questioned his methods, but they remained silent. They fear the stranger, they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die." Sarah Anne Johnson: I imagine this is very difficult for his family. Those with anxieties or insecurities and who had trouble with the state of the world were labelled as "the weak"; in Cameron's analysis, they could not cope with life and had to be isolated from society by "the strong". (McCoy, 2007), According to Leonard Rubenstein, an attorney for plaintiffs [Mrs. David Orlikow et al. Not only was Ewen Cameron running the Allan Memorial, but he was leading psychiatric organizations, he was teaching at McGill University, and he was still seeing private patients. He came up with the idea that if he presented the world and confronted the Germans with the atrocities committed during the war, the world and the Germans would refrain from repeated acts of extreme aggression. Ben: Sure. We want to hear from you! Birthdate: June 04, 1906. His support of Charles Edward Stuart was instrumental in the Jacobite Rising of 1745 Lochiel and the Jacobite cause Its not a very popular mountain to climb, its steep. Amory: Marian was 5 years old when her mom was admitted to the Allan for what she thinks was postpartum depression. Although society had established sanctions against the spread of infectious diseases, Cameron wanted to extend the concept of contagion to chronic anxiety. For years, the patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron or, more accurately, the families of those patients have been trying to get compensation for the unthinkable experiments their loved ones were subjected to. Results were telling: They became super sensitive to the sensory stimuli they did receive, and then, things started getting really weird. Ontario. He tried a variety of things, including multiple electroshock therapy sessions a day and massive doses of drugs including LSD. Theres no clear approach to the summit only overgrown pathways. Were they *destroyed* or did you just take the patients name out? with distinction from the University of Glasgow in 1936. In theory, he was supposed to help her anxiety, depression, and postpartum depression. I think he wanted to be famous. That was the case for people like Phyllis Goldberg. He was always attracted to these subjects for which there was no easy answer. . Morrow's family got involved, and it was only at their insistence that she was transferred to another hospital. And he didn't achieve that either. If I put you through this program, within 24 hours to 48 hours you'll be in a diagnosable psychotic state. He recruited psychoanalysts, social psychiatrists and biologists globally to develop the psychiatry program at McGill[12] From its beginning in 1943, the Allan Memorial Institute was run on an "open door" basis, allowing patients to leave if they wished, as opposed to the "closed door" policy of other hospitals in Canada in the early 1940s. "Now, that was a foolish mistake. And in that he took some risks, obviously. She wasn't able to joke and laugh She would blurt out something like: 'We must do the right thing!'" Cameron would analyze what conditions produced the stronger worker, what would be the necessary conditions to replicate this personality and to reward the stronger while disciplining the weaker. On March 10, Cameron's notes read: "She is disoriented as to time only and is probably in her second stage of depatterning. Ian Donald Cameron is geboren in het jaar 1932 in Blairmore House, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, zoon van Ewen Donald CAMERON en Enid Agnes Maud LEVITA. Psychiatric experimentation: the lessons or history, The Journal of the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 1994, Vol. Our username is. And he has a much different memory of how it all went down. Her family sued, first based on the treatment alone, then again, after discovering she was a part of the MKUltra program. John Marks: The Allan Memorial Institute under Cleghorn commissioned a study of his work, which is absolutely or almost absolutely unprecedented in the psychiatric field. Ben: But Duncan is still, in some ways, trying to defend his dads honor. Their diagnosis was amnesia and hysteria, per a short commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Amory: Duncan struggles dealing with his dads legacy because he cant speak to why his dad did what he did. In this manner, somatic causes could be compared. Yeah so it was sad. [citation needed] Characteristics were thus diagnosed as syndromes emerging from the brain. He wanted to know if it was possible to wipe a person's mind and reinstall a new personality. And Camerons part of that. Ewen Donald Cameron. David Cameron's grandfather Ewen Donald Cameron (1906-1958) was a City of London figure who became a director at the stock brokerage house Panmure Gordon. Stephen Kinzer: In the end, Gottlieb was forced to conclude that there's no such thing as mind control and that everything he had done had been for naught. There are a few ways to reach us: This content was originally created for audio. Cameron focused primarily on biological descriptive psychiatry and applied the British and European schools and models of the practice. Cameron believed that mental illness was literally contagious that if one came into contact with someone with mental illness, one would begin to produce the symptoms of a mental disease. Ben: When Amory and I spoke to Duncan Cameron about his dad, he also told us about his own work, as a lawyer. In his 1946 paper entitled "Frontiers of Social Psychiatry", he used the case of World War II Germany as an example where society poisoned the minds of citizens by creating a general anxiety or neurosis.[19]. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. These did nothing to calm the feud which continued through succeeding reigns to when Donald's grandson Ewen, the 13th chief, fought at the battle of Flodden where James IV was killed. And he was always very fascinated by what the future held for us all. Donald Ewen Cameron was the key figure in the Montreal experiments. Like, did she always have problems? And he said, Oh, gosh. She goes, No. She was the one that was gonna go and conquer the world. Anyone with any appreciation of the complexity of the human mind would not expect that you could erase an adult mind and then add things back with this stupid psychic driving., Amory: The CIA also turned its back on Cameron. They stressed how they'd been unwilling participants, and that they'd gone to the institute for other issues. Ben: Duncan Cameron was 10 years old when his dad became the Director of the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal. Memorials. [29], Sid Taylor stated that Cameron used curare to immobilise his patients during his research. Particularly because we put that question to him today. After one test he noted: "Although the patient was prepared by both prolonged sensory isolation (35 days) and by repeated depatterning, and although she received 101 days of positive driving, no favourable results were obtained." Ben: But the Canadian and US governments could take accountability for their support of Cameron. Marian: There was a picture of my mom there and somebody commented, Ugh that's the Johanna that's her name I remember. And my sister looked at him and said, But what was she like? The mentally ill were thus labelled as not only sick, but also weak. Some would bang their heads against the walls relentlessly, trying to get the helmets off and that's when he realized he could just put them back into a medically-induced coma and play the tapes for as long as he wanted. Duncan: Well, that's a big subject. Think of all the books and the movies that are about mind control. First I have to say that my father was exceedingly committed to his field. Alison Steel says her mother was never the same after undergoing. Did he ever talk about that? He actually has a smile. And the funeral was yet another opportunity for Marian and her siblings to learn more about the mother who had been absent for so much of their childhoods. Thank you! Donald Ewen Cameron was born in Bridge of Allan, Scotland, the oldest son of a Presbyterian minister. The Canadian government also funded the project. The work of Dr. Ewen Cameron may have been discredited by mainstream psychiatry, but that doesn't mean it went away completely. And you see this actual physical manual on how to break down the human mind. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the CIA. Hij is overleden in het jaar 2010 in Near Toulon, France. In 1936, he moved to Massachusetts to become director of the research division at Worcester State Hospital only 1 year later. There are movies like Gaslight and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. During those years, Cameron began to expand on his thoughts about the interrelationships of mind and body, developing a reputation as a psychiatrist who could bridge the gap between the organic, structural neurologists, and the psychiatrists whose knowledge of anatomy was limited to maps of the mind as opposed to maps of the brain. He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association (19521953), Canadian Psychiatric Association (19581959),[2] American Psychopathological Association (1963),[3] Society of Biological Psychiatry (1965)[4] and the World Psychiatric Association (19611966). As soon as his family found out about his death, they burned all the files that this man kept in his possession. Duncan Cameron: This is a picture of the whole family. We shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry we did it.. [28] His work was inspired and paralleled by the psychiatrist William Sargant, who was also involved with the intelligence services and experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage. For Cameron, the traits were contagions and anyone affected by the societal, cultural or personality forms would themselves be infected. "[36], Cameron is the subject of Stephen Bennett's film Eminent Monsters (2020), which was funded by BBC Scotland and Creative Scotland. Joseph Rauh Jr. was one of the attorneys that represented the group who filed lawsuits in the mid-1980s. Donald Cameron of Lochiel (c.1700 - October 1748), was an influential Highland Clan Chief known for his magnanimous and gallant nature. Hebb submitted his findings to the CIA, and it ended up being just the beginning. As time has worn on, its become the families of those victims who shoulder the burden. Amory: Jim Turner was one of two prosecutors on the case. Any documents that related to patient treatment were destroyed? Amory: Just not in the way he might have hoped. According to what his son, Duncan, told WBUR, it was 1967 when he decided to climb Street Mountain in the Adirondacks. She was admitted to McGill's Allan Memorial Institute in 1957, needing help dealing with depression and the loss of her child. The FBI's FOIA Library contains many files of public interest and historical value. Though he does seem to imply that it was done by him or someone in the family. And Mary Morrow? I wasnt destroying documents. Through his instruction of nurses and psychiatrists he became an authority in his areas of concentration. Today, we're talking to one of the only people who will stand up for Dr. Cameron. It was reported that none of the patients sent to the Radio Telemetry Lab showed any signs of improvement. The behaviour of a mental patient could resemble the behaviour of a patient with, for example, syphilis, and then a somatic cause could be deduced for a psychological illness. On March 12, her records show she was considered "depatterned": She could no longer stand, speak, could barely swallow, was incontinent, and required treatment by an obstetrician for severe bleeding. That could be heightened with various drugs, eventually was replaced by positive messages, and the so-called "psychic driving" would continue. And he put Camerons treatment program under the microscope. Cameron stated, "Get it understood how dangerous these damaged, sick personalities are to ourselves and above all, to our children, whose traits are taking form and we shall find ways to put an end to them." Ben: Over and over, weve heard from victims of Dr. Ewen Camerons brutal experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute. After he left, his position as chair of the department of psychiatry was handed to Robert Cleghorn. Amory: Hey, Dad, let's get out of here!, Duncan: I can remember doing that several times. To see some of the things that have happened are very upsetting. ", "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron,". Hes in his mid-80s now. "He was supposed to do wonders with people with depression or mental health issues." Amory: He said he did not destroy documents, that he didn't know about that. The victims and their lawyers want us to remember that this story isnt over. In 1933, he married Jean C. Rankine, whom he had met while they were students at the University of Glasgow. Amory: Theres a reason that all the photos of Ewen Cameron are from more than 50 years ago. But we do have his son, Duncan Cameron. Death: June 18, 1958 (52) Immediate Family: Son of Sir Ewen Allan Cameron and Rachel Margaret Cameron. In other words, they really must have seen that there was something wrong and crazy. Ben: The manual was all about how to obtain information from quote resistant sources. It went on to become the basis for the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Ben: But some key documentation of Camerons time at the Allan is straight up missing. That would have been the cultural environment in which people like Sidney Gottlieb grew up. A possessive type, filled with jealousy and demanding utmost loyalty. And, until theres true accountability for what happened and what is still happening, it never will be. And people talk about the transmission of trauma through generations. Duncan: It's really a very moving editorial. Skip Ancestry . Shes a member of SAAGA, or Survivors Allied Against Government Abuse. (laughter). ", So, they went back to a 1983 court transcript, where Duncan was called to the stand to testify about what happened to his father's documents. I'm sure part of him very much wanted to be the person who cures mental illness. Harvey: It is frustrating, and if you talk about a story with no end, I think the important thing to remember is that it isn't just the patients who went through this, it was their families. He had various people record the tapes sometimes including the patient's loved ones and it was, on the whole, incredibly traumatizing. Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. 100, Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. 101, Last edited on 16 February 2023, at 19:10, "Society of Biological Psychiatry 65th Annual Meeting Program Book (p. 14)", "World Psychiatric Association Chronology", "Current Comment: Psychiatric Examination of Rudolf Hess", The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control, "Doctor Looked After the Sick, And Looked Around for the CIA", "A History of Secret CIA Mind Control Research", "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron", Stunning tale of brainwashing, the CIA and an unsuspecting Scots researcher, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Ewen_Cameron&oldid=1139756014, A passive man who "is afraid to say what he really thinks" and "will stand anything, and stands for nothing". Is seen in his theories regarding the German people dealing with depression the. 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