Project CHATTER

Project CHATTER was a highly classified Navy program started in 1947 aimed at developing a truth drug that would force people to reveal their innermost secrets. The program was inherited by Dr. Dr. Samuel Thompson in 1951 when he became head of psychiatric research at the Naval Medical Research Institute. The Navy's motivation, according to Thompson, was the fear that "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

The Wendt Contract

The Navy gave Professor G. Richard Wendt, chairman of the Psychology Department at the University of Rochester, a $300,000 contract to study barbiturates, amphetamines, alcohol, and heroin. To preserve secrecy, the money flowed not through Navy channels but out of the Secretary of Defense's contingency fund. For drugs not available from pharmaceutical companies, Navy officials went to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, whose Commissioner personally signed the papers for deliveries including 30 grams of pure heroin and 11 pounds of "Mexican grown" marijuana.¹

The Frankfurt Fiasco

In the summer of 1952, Wendt announced he had found a concoction "so special" it would be "the answer" to the truth drug problem. Thompson contacted the CIA, which agreed to furnish subjects in Germany under the codename Operation CASTIGATE. Wendt refused to reveal his formula until the testing began, and it turned out to be a mixture of Seconal, Dexedrine, and cannabis extract, all well-known drugs that had been thoroughly tested. The experiments on five subjects, including suspected double agents and defectors, were a complete failure. Morse Allen felt he had been the victim of "a fraud or at least a gross misinterpretation."²

Termination

After the Wendt fiasco, Thompson stated he could never work with Wendt again. Navy officials summoned Wendt to Bethesda and told him they were canceling their support and expected a refund of all unspent money. By the end of 1953, the Korean War had ended and the Navy abandoned CHATTER altogether. Over the next two decades the Navy would still sponsor large amounts of specialized behavioral research, and the Army would invest huge sums in schemes to incapacitate whole armies with powerful drugs, but the CIA clearly pulled far into the lead in Mind Control.²