Father, Son and CIA

Tay Wilson is an associate professor of psychology at Laurentian
University.

Father, Son and cia is researched with loving care. Weinstein lost his
father, who was apparently suffering only from a minor anxiety neurosis,
to a cia-financed experiment in “brainwashing” as a treatment for
mental illness. This experiment was one of several carried out at the
Allan Memorial Institute under Dr. Ewen Cameron. Weinstein, himself
trained as a psychiatrist, describes in some detail Cameron’s
professional background and his development of a “dynamic implant”
technique combining physical methods (including drugs such as lsd and
psychological, visual, and auditory isolation) to “break down” the
patient’s defences with his version of psychotherapy. That such
experiments were carried out in Canada is itself tragic and unsettling.
But when Weinstein recounts his failed attempts to obtain legal and
political redress for the alleged mistreatment, the reader gradually
realizes something even more upsetting: how little protection the
citizen has from such events’ recurrence. Various issues in the case
went to the highest political and legal levels, but were stonewalled.
All and sundry were more or less whitewashed with lame-duck
excuses—for example, “requests for funding were processed
normally” and “this type of thing has been done in the past.”
Weinstein correctly points out that at the Nuremberg trials, Nazi
physicians also tried to defend themselves by citing historical
precedent. This argument was properly rejected. Yet despite the
Nuremberg Code—as well as the later derivative rules on human
experimentation in 1954, 1961, and 1964—Weinstein’s experience
suggests that we still lack effective societal protection against
unethical experimental activities of this ilk. A disturbing thought; a
harrowing account.