Samuel Thompson

Dr. Samuel Thompson was a psychiatrist, physiologist, and pharmacologist who held the rank of Navy commander. He inherited Professor Wendt and Project CHATTER in 1951 when he became head of psychiatric research at the Naval Medical Institute. Thompson remembered Naval intelligence telling him of the need for a truth drug in case "someone planted an A-bomb in one of our cities and we had twelve hours to find out from a person where it was. What could we do to make him talk?" Thompson conceded he was always "negative" about the possibility that such a drug could ever exist, but cited the fear that the Russians might develop their own miracle potion as reason enough to justify the program.¹

Operation CASTIGATE

When Wendt announced his secret truth drug formula in the summer of 1952, Thompson contacted the CIA, thinking "they might have someone with something to spill." Thompson, Wendt, and a Naval Intelligence man traveled to Frankfurt, Germany, to join the ARTICHOKE team led by Morse Allen and his boss Paul Gaynor. Thompson asked what would happen if something went wrong and the subject died. He recalls one of the Frankfurt CIA men replying, "Disposal of the body would be no problem."¹

The Wendt Fiasco

When Wendt finally revealed his formula to Thompson, it turned out to be a combination of the depressant Seconal, the stimulant Dexedrine, and cannabis extract, all well-known drugs. Thompson was dumbfounded and remembers wanting to shoot Wendt on the spot. He quickly passed on the information to the CIA men, who were more than a little disappointed. The general attitude toward Wendt became, in Thompson's words, "hostile as all hell." After the experiments failed, Thompson stated he could never work with Wendt again.¹

The "A" Treatment

After Wendt's drugs failed, the ARTICHOKE team gave the first subject the "A" (for ARTICHOKE) treatment, a technique used during the war to interrogate prisoners and treat shell-shocked soldiers. As practiced on the suspected Russian agent, it consisted of injecting enough sodium pentothal to knock him out and then, twenty minutes later, stimulating him back to semiconsciousness with a shot of Benzedrine. The CIA psychiatric consultant used the technique of "regression" to convince the subject he was talking to his wife Eva at some earlier time in his life, speaking through a male interpreter playing the wife. The consultant stated he could "create any fantasy" with 60 to 70 percent of his patients using narcotherapy or Hypnosis.¹