---
category: Place
created: 2026-06-03
location: Vacaville, California
summary: California medical facility where MKULTRA experiments were conducted on inmates,
  and where SLA leader Donald DeFreeze was recruited by CIA psychological warfare
  specialist Colston Westbrook.
tags:
- Place
- MKULTRA
- CIA
- Prison
updated: 2026-06-03
---

The California Medical Facility, located in Vacaville, [California](/places/california/), was a state prison facility where [MKULTRA](/programs/project-mkultra/) experiments were conducted on inmates. The prison served as a ready population of involuntary subjects for behavioral modification experiments during the period when the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) and the [Army](/organizations/us-army/) were actively testing drugs, hypnosis, and psychological conditioning techniques.[^1]

### Notable Inmates and Operations

[Donald DeFreeze](/people/donald-defreeze/), the future leader of the [Symbionese Liberation Army](/organizations/symbionese-liberation-army/), was imprisoned at Vacaville during the time of the MKULTRA experiments. At the prison, DeFreeze came under the tutelage of [Colston Westbrook](/people/colston-westbrook/), a CIA psychological warfare specialist who ran the Black Cultural Association at the facility. DeFreeze obtained early release from Vacaville by performing a "favor" for prison authorities, a reference to submitting to psychiatric experiments. After his release, DeFreeze formed the SLA, which conducted a campaign of political violence in California that served to discredit left-wing movements.[^1]

[Charles Manson](/people/charles-manson/) was also incarcerated at Vacaville during periods when MKULTRA experiments were being conducted on inmates. Manson was released from Terminal Island federal penitentiary on March 21, 1967, the same year the CIA launched [Operation CHAOS](/programs/operation-chaos/). His parole officer Roger Smith was based at the [Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic](/organizations/haight-ashbury-free-medical-clinic/), adjacent to operations run by [Dr. Louis Jolyon West](/people/louis-jolyon-west/), the MKULTRA Subproject 43 chief. The question of whether Manson was a product of CIA mind control experiments has been the subject of sustained independent investigation, with researchers concluding there was a "good likelihood" of such a connection.[^2] After his conviction for the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson served part of his sentence at Vacaville. Manson's programming techniques, which included high doses of [LSD](/concepts/lsd/) and hypnotism applied to turn flower children into killers, paralleled known CIA methods.[^1][^2]

[^1]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press #16, 1998.
[^2]: Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring, *Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties*. Little, Brown and Company, 2019.