---
category: Scientists & Researchers
created: 2026-06-03
died: 2004
location: New York, New York
summary: New York psychologist and former ASCH president who served as an unpaid CIA
  consultant on hypnosis research, maintaining throughout his career that creating
  a hypnotically programmed assassin was operationally feasible.
tags:
- Person
- CIA
- MKULTRA
- Hypnosis
- BehavioralControl
updated: 2026-06-03
---

Milton Kline was a New York psychologist and onetime president of the American Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis who served as an unpaid consultant to the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)'s [Hypnosis](/concepts/hypnotism/) research. Nothing that [Alden Sears](/people/alden-sears/) or other researchers found disabused Kline of the idea that the programmed assassin was achievable. "It cannot be done by everyone," Kline stated. "It cannot be done consistently, but it can be done." Kline said he could create a "patsy" in three months and an assassin in six.[^1]

Kline was one of many outside experts to whom [John Gittinger](/people/john-gittinger/) and his colleagues talked. Other consultants with equally impressive credentials rejected Kline's views. In no other area of the behavioral sciences was there so little accord on basic questions. "You could find an expert who would agree with everything," said Gittinger. "Therefore, we tried to get everybody." Kline said he did not want to cross the ethical line himself but was sure the intelligence agencies had.[^1]

[^1]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*, Chapter 11.