In
1953, terrified by rumors of Communist “brainwashing” of prisoners of war
during the Korean War, then CIA Director Allen Dulles authorized MKULTRA—a
program that quickly became notorious for unusual and inhumane testing that the
CIA and U.S. military poured millions of dollars into. In fact, while reviewing
the “tests” five years later in 1958, one CIA auditor wrote: “Precautions must
be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to enemy forces, but also
to conceal these activities from the American public. The knowledge the Agency
is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious
repercussions in political and diplomatic circles.” Most of the documents
detailing day-to-day operations within MKULTRA were destroyed by the CIA in
1972. These included limitless LSD experiments on unknowing victims, as well as
experiments with sensory deprivation, electro-shock, brain implants, hypnosis
and various forms of torture.
Among
those involved in MKULTRA workings were former Nazi scientists. Project
Paperclip was the codename for the U.S. Intelligence Services and military
project that brought hundreds of Nazi scientists specializing in chemical
weapons, science, rocketry and medicine from
Despite
then-President Harry S. Truman’s orders not to allow scientists who were
thought to have “unusually strong” leanings toward Nazi propaganda, many of the
incoming German scientists’ files were rewritten and “cleaned-up.” This was
mainly to prevent their expert skills from falling into the hands of the
Directly
following the expatriation of Nazi scientists into the
All
the subprograms of MKULTRA, including Bluebird and Artichoke, coupled with the
expatriation of hundreds of Nazi scientists specializing in mind control
experiments, were justified by the CIA as a necessary means to an end—that is,
to create dissociative symptoms and disorders,
including full multiple personality disorder, for the creation of “Manchurian
candidates,” or super-spies to be used on enemies during the Cold War.
In
2001, Carol Rutz published a brief narrative of her life that would shock all
those who read it. A Nation Betrayed: The
Chilling True Story of Secret Cold War Experiments on Our Children and Other
Innocent People is an alarming account of U.S. government
experiments performed on innocent children under the guise of preparing the
country for a Cold War that would never happen—with many government officials
heralding the project as “the end that would justify the means.”
Using
electroshock, drugs, hypnosis, trauma and sensory deprivation, thousands of
American children such as Carol Rutz allegedly endured unthinkable mental and
physical pain at the hands of the CIA conducting mind experiments in order to
create a Manchurian Candidate. But as our country began to lift the veil of
Cold War paranoia, these same children, according to Rutz, were now growing
into adults, and suddenly they began silently suffering flashes of torturous
memories that neither they nor those around them understood. Indeed, for these
Americans, including Rutz, the damage stemming from the government’s misuse of
power during this time period had already been done.
In
an effort to expose the truth about these government experiments, Rutz’s A Nation
Betrayed—now being adapted into a motion picture screenplay—is
footnoted documentation of her personal involvement in mind control experiments
beginning when she was four years old. Sold to the government for use by her
father and grandfather, Rutz’s account includes her
12-year frightening journey of government testing and training for use in
various ways, including everything from sexual acts to assassinations by
mentally creating “alters” in her—or multiple personalities. Under American
government programs such as Bluebird/Artichoke and MKULTRA, CIA personnel
worked alongside former Nazi scientists and doctors who had already proven
proficient in breaking the mind and rebuilding it.
In
an exclusive interview with oldSpeak, Mrs. Rutz discussed A Nation Betrayed, a substantial
framework to some of the well-concealed “secret operative” evils that pervaded
our government during
JW: On the cover of your book, A Nation Betrayed, there is a picture of a little
girl. Is that you?
Carol
Rutz: That is me as a young child of 4 years old. That is the year that I was
first taken by the CIA.
JW: In the prologue, you mention a summer day
in 1991 when you and your sister visited your uncle, who was dying of cancer.
You write, “Something in me stirred that warm afternoon; the secrets that I had
been holding all my whole life couldn’t be contained, and then it came out.” Is
that what you call an abreaction?
CR:
Actually, I had done abreacting in effect with my father prior to that time at
home with my husband. I had yet to come out publicly to my family. This was a
big step for me that day—to actually tell my sister what had been going on in
our life.
JW: When did you start recovering memories prior to that?
CR:
1991 was the year I originally started recovering memories. I attribute that to
being in a safe environment for the first time in my life.
JW: What memories started surfacing? What did you start remembering?
CR:
I started abreacting as my husband was kissing my neck—I would abreact on the
incest that had taken place. This came out over time. So it was basically in
the beginning that I started remembering the incest. And then, as time went on,
I remembered other things to do with government experiments and ritual
abuse—although I didn’t understand the nature of what I was remembering.
JW: When you use the term abreaction, what do you mean?
CR:
Abreaction is similar, for example, to what a Gulf War veteran would experience
once he is home. These are soldiers who had been in the line of duty. They may
be sitting in their living room and hear a bomb go off on the TV. Or they smell
something and it triggers them back into the time they were in battle. It is
similar to taking a tape recorder or a phonograph and putting the needle on the
phonograph and replaying that entire event. You feel as if you are there.
JW: That afternoon, you started remembering incidents with family
members such as your father. You indicate that life as a child was a living
hell. Give me a sense of what you remember about what happened in your family—specifically the abuse.
CR:
My abuse started at a very young age in the form of incest with my father and
my grandfather. There was generational ritual abuse involved that started at
the age of two and a half. These things are what made me become dissociative. As time went on, I saw my cousin drowned. I
saw such horrible events that I could not retain my sanity. That is why I
became dissociative and lost my memory of these
events.
JW: You say that you became the government’s “little experiment.” This
is connected to your parents as well. Was your father somehow connected to the
government? The CIA? How did you wind up being the
government’s “little experiment”?
CR:
I honestly believe that someone in the CIA knew about the pornographic material
my grandfather was producing. I believe they used that as a weapon to blackmail
him and to gain my services. My grandfather was into child porn and probably
sold it to members of the Mafia.
JW: What time period was this?
CR:
The early 1950s.
JW: What type of child pornography was involved? Movies?
Magazines?
CR:
It was stills.
JW: You write that your grandfather took photos of you in lewd
positions. Somehow the government through whatever source found out about this.
Then what happened?
CR:
When my mother gave birth to my younger sister, who is five years younger than
I am, my grandfather and those in the government whom he was working with felt
this would be an opportune time to exploit me and not have to explain my
absence to my mother. I was taken aboard an aircraft to what I believe was
JW: Why do you believe it was
CR:
I have journals throughout all of my memories, and from what I wrote I believe
it to be
JW: You mentioned that you were dissociative.
You also mention the concept of alters. Could you explain alters and the dissociative identity disorder?
CR:
Dissociative identity disorder used to be called
MPD—multiple personality disorder. What happens is that when a child is
abused—usually under the age of 6—so horrifically that their mind cannot
contain what has happened to them, they dissociate that event. It becomes
locked away in a memory, and a child is able to go on and only remember part of
their life. They remember the part that takes them through the day to day
living. But they are totally dependent on their abuser.
JW: The human mind creates categories?
CR:
Pretty much. When one is creating an alter, generally
that alter comes back for the same type of situation. For instance, I had a
child alter who participated in the pornographic photographs.
JW: Was that the alter you refer to as “little girl” in your book?
CR:
No. “Little girl” was first created from the incest with my father. That is the alter the CIA chose and used for me.
JW: How are alters brought into realization—that is, if they (the CIA or whoever) want you to be “little girl,” do
they say the phrase “little girl” to you?
CR:
Yes. All they had to do was to mention the word “little girl” and I would
immediately dissociate into that compliant alter who had been abused.
JW: When you became the alter, you became that
person? You wouldn’t remember who else you were? You just remembered the
alternate personality?
CR:
That’s right. If I was 10 years old and “little girl” was called out, I would
become 4 years old again. I would become “little girl” and act as if I was a
totally different person.
JW: At the time, that alter would perform the
particular task for which that alter was created?
CR:
Right. When the government first started creating alters, they used
electroshock on me plus some drugs and hypnotic techniques. These were used to
bring back those alters that they created for their own personal use.
JW: You were shocked, drugged and hypnotized?
CR:
This happens to every young child who is used in these programs. The first time
for me was in July of 1952. That was when electroshock was used on me.
JW: How was the electroshock administered?
CR:
I don’t really remember. I know that I was sitting in a chair. I know that I
had electrodes on my head.
JW: What other means do the handlers, the abusers, use to create alters?
CR:
They use a systematic form of torture of some sort. It can be sensory
deprivation. Some children are placed in a box with snakes. It can be
electroshock. Some type of traumatic incident will then shock
the dissociative person into another state of mind so
that the handlers can work with a new alter. Trauma-based programming is
what I call it. It is used to produce altered states of mind.
JW: You specifically mention being involved with the top-secret project
MKULTRA and doctors who worked with MKULTRA in your book.
CR:
Yes, I was 4 years old. MKULTRA was established in 1953 to counter the Soviet
and Chinese advances in brainwashing interrogation techniques.
JW: Thus, MKULTRA was established for a noble purpose?
CR:
I suppose the
JW: What is MKULTRA?
CR:
It consisted of 149 different sub-projects that were contracted out to at least
80 institutions. They were trying to find hypotnic
couriers. These are what are called “Manchurian candidates”—after the movie of
the same title. The government had been using hypnosis prior to that time under
a project called Artichoke. They were finding some success with hypnotic
couriers. This appears to be the case from the declassified documents I’ve
read. Therefore, they wanted to take it a step further. They also were going to
be testing LSD and, unfortunately, they used this awful drug on many of our
American soldiers. There were various drugs used to see if they could find a
brainwashing technique.
JW: And they used young children as well?
CR:
A lot of people were used. Young children were some that they kept the most
secret.
JW: These government handlers were obviously programming people for
various things. One, as you write about in your book, was sexual pleasure. Then
there was the Manchurian candidate and so on.
CR:
Right. They had so many different ways to use a child. They used children in
more ways than one. I was used at one point in time, when I was probably around
10, to tempt men. I would be behind a two-way mirror with a man that they were
setting up. Then they would take pictures and use them to blackmail whatever
person they had into doing what they wanted.
JW: When you say “they,” are you talking about the FBI? The CIA?
CR:
It was a group of people who were what I call the shadow government. Some of
them were involved in the CIA. But I don’t believe that everyone in the CIA
knew what was going on. It is documented that part of this was kept to the
knowledge of two or three people in the CIA.
JW: Such as Allen Dulles, head of the CIA at the time?
CR:
That is correct. Then, of course, we have the complicity of the doctors who
were involved in this program.
JW: Were universities involved working with the government on MKULTRA
mind control?
CR:
Yes, there were a good number of universities involved.
JW: Your mentioned the phrase “Manchurian Candidate,” which is, of
course, a great film about people who are programmed to kill. Were you
programmed to be a Manchurian candidate?
CR:
What they programmed me for, and what I actually accomplished, are two
different things. What they were trying to accomplish with me was to create
someone who could kill by the power of using their mind. In
other words, a psychic killer. I do not say that I ever did that. I am
saying that is what they were trying to achieve.
JW: Do you know of any survivors that, once they have been programmed as
a Manchurian candidate, have been called back into service to actually do that?
To kill someone? Psychically or
otherwise?
CR:
Yes. Since 2001 when my book was published, I have heard from hundreds of
different survivors. Some of them say they were programmed to be assassins. I
was not programmed as an assassin to use arms and weapons.
JW: How many survivors of mind control do you think are out there?
CR:
There have to be thousands. I have heard from hundreds. So if I have heard from
hundreds, there have to be thousands.
JW: The renowned psychologist, Dr. Corydon
Hammond, gave a speech in 1992 in which he claimed that this is a common
pattern across the
CR:
It validated people who read my book and said, “Oh, my God. I am not crazy.
What I remembered is really true. This is exactly what I remember happening to
me.”
JW: In your book A Nation Betrayed, you discuss a man you refer to as
Dr. Black. You claim that Dr. Black was actually the Nazi Joseph Mengele, the Angel of Death of
CR:
I believe that Allen Dulles knew. I know there were a number of doctors that
worked with Dr. Black who knew that he was Joseph Mengele.
Mengele was brought to the
JW: Gerald Posner’s book, Mengele: The
Complete Story, suggests that Mengele actually landed in
America, I believe it was New York City, on his way to someplace else. There is
no hard evidence that he actually conducted any experiments in the
CR:
Because when I saw Joseph Mengele’s face in a
photograph, I recognized him as Dr. Black. Moreover, as time went on and I
spoke with more and more survivors, other people remembered the same face as
that of Joseph Mengele when they saw a picture of
him. He had an accent. He wore shiny black shoes. But more than once I was told
not to look at his face. However, there came a point in time where he actually
identified himself to me. I probably was around 16 years old when that
happened. He referred to me as one of the “Mengele
kids.” That was the time I heard his name mentioned or he himself spoke his
name. Other than that, it was always Dr. Black in front of me.
JW: In your book, you indicate that Mengele actually harvested eggs from you after an abortion.
CR:
I believe that to be the case. That is what I was told.
JW: Who told you that?
CR:
Joseph Mengele. He showed me two children who had
grossly enlarged heads. He told me that they were the product of eggs he had
harvested from me when I was 12 years old. This was during an abortion performed
on me.
JW: After performing an abortion? So you remember being pregnant?
CR:
I do now.
JW: In your book, you indicate that some of the
experiments on you occurred in
CR:
JW: Your father knew this was going on? He was involved?
CR:
Once my grandfather got me involved, I believe my father was stuck. My father
was involved in child pornography and ritual abuse. He could have been taken
out of the process at any point in time. But by having him involved, I believe
it accomplished more than one thing. It kept me dissociative.
It kept me … that is such a hard question to answer
During
the Canadian experiments on me, there was a famed neurosurgeon involved. I met
a nurse just two years ago at a conference who worked with this neurosurgeon
when she was a young nurse. After hearing what I said about the brain surgery
that was done on me, she relayed to me that the neurosurgeon was experimenting
on epileptic children. Parents would agree to have their children worked on by
him to help the epilepsy. However, at the same time he was mapping their
brains. This was very validating to me, knowing that this is in fact what he
had done to me when I was taken to him. He was basically mapping my brain.
JW: This was Mengele that was mapping your
brain?
CR:
Yes.
JW: What does it mean to map a brain?
CR:
Mapping is done to find out different centers. In my case, I had different personas—that
is, different alters—and different parts of my brain. This neurosurgeon was
trying to identify what parts of my brain had different alters.
JW: In your book, you said you were taken to a
large airplane hangar and there were children in cages hanging from the
ceiling.
CR:
Yes, that’s right. These children were being used as experiments.
JW: Who was with you at the time? Was your father with you?
CR:
No. The only people I remember were CIA-connected and Joseph Mengele. What you have to keep in mind is if you take a
child who is, for example, 8 years old and place that child naked in a cage,
hang the cage from the ceiling, give them no food or water and do not allow
them to sleep, they very quickly become compliant. And you program them to do
whatever you wish.
JW: In your book, you describe a scene that
captures some of what we are discussing. It had to do with Dr. Black, whom you
say is Dr. Mengele. It is a scene where Dr. Black
makes a child crawl toward him like a dog. The child had shackles on her
ankles.
CR:
I was told that. It is a story by another survivor who remembered it. So I
cannot vouch for its veracity.
JW: Did anything similar to that happen to you? How were you used by Dr.
Black in terms of programming? Was he just doing experiments, or was he trying
to actually program you as well?
CR:
I don’t believe he was programming me at all. He was utilizing me for various
experiments he was doing. God only knows what he got out of all this. I believe
it had to do with some type of scientific genetic eugenics experiment.
JW: Dr. Black was simply one of many Nazi doctors, scientists and war
criminals brought into the
CR:
I believe that the person who originally delivered me to Allen Dulles to be
experimented on was involved with Project Paperclip. The
JW: Of course, the government says they did
this for a noble concept. They brought the Nazi scientists into the
CR:
That is correct. Recently, Elizabeth Holtzman, a
former Congresswoman from
JW: Are you saying that our government is still doing those things?
CR:
Yes, in a way. Recently, 60 Minutes had
a program on how our government is shuttling people to different countries for
interrogation and torture. When the man from the CIA was asked if he believed
it was appropriate to torture people, he said, “Yes. It’s okay to do this as
long as I can prevent Americans from being injured.” Thus, the same type of
mindset now exists as when I was a child.
JW: Many people argue that programs such as Project Paperclip and even
some of these experiments we’ve been discussing are justified to a certain
extent if it kept this country free. How do you respond to that?
CR:
It is hard for me to understand how people can believe that any means justifies
an end because we will eventually turn into what we hate.
JW: Have we turned into what we hate? Because we still see instances of
torturing people. For example, there is a detention center in
CR:
Absolutely. It was very reminiscent of what happened to me. It was very
difficult to watch. But this is not new. The government has done this before,
as I detail in my book. Also, this is not the first time they have used
children for their own purposes. Just last December, there was a documentary
about children in
JW: There is a history which you point out in your book of experiments
on children.
CR:
Back in the ‘40s and the ‘50s,
JW: 582 third graders.
CR:
Yes, and 829 pregnant women were given a cocktail
laced with radioactive iron and told to drink it because it would be good for
their fetuses.
JW: This was
CR:
That’s correct. That was back in 1945 through 1949. And retarded children at
D.C. Children’s Center in
JW: You mentioned in your book that under Project Paperclip many of the
sought-after child victims were in some way gifted children. What does that
mean exactly? How were you gifted? Is it scholastically? Is
it possessing psychic powers?
CR:
Well, I have a higher IQ than the average person. But a high IQ does not
necessarily make you a good or a smart person. I am gifted in the sense that I
find I have very good instincts about people. I don’t believe there is anything
special about me at all. The basic thing you have to realize is that we
were children who were available. The people that were used were available.
Their parents were willing to sell them to the government, or their parents
worked for the government. And they believed that it was a noble cause they
were being used for. It is not that we were special. It’s that we were there.
JW: Let’s digress for a moment and return to an important point. You indicated
that a certain select people knew about these programs, such as Allen Dulles
and others. They did these horrible horrible things.
However, supposedly Congress was unaware. And supposedly the President of the
CR:
No, I don’t believe so. I don’t believe that Congress was aware at all.
Back in the late 1970s, these were investigated to some extent. MKULTRA and the
like were the subject of a congressional
committee investigation. At the time, Senator Edward Kennedy basically said,
“The intelligence community of this nation, which requires a shroud of secrecy
in order to operate, has a very sacred trust from the American people.
The CIA’s program of human experimentation of the ‘50s and ‘60s violated that
trust. It was violated again on the day the bulk of the agency’s records were
destroyed in 1973. It is violated each time a responsible official refuses to
recollect the details of the program. The best safeguard against abuses and
abusers is a complete public accounting of the abuses of the past.”
I
am working with several other survivors in bringing up this issue again before
Congress. We have sent approximately 50 of my books in an advocacy packet with
information to Congress. We are waiting to see if we will get some type of
response into further declassification of records on the experiments and
programs like MKULTRA.
JW: There are some things so horrible that when people are told they are
happening, the first thing they are going to say is, “No, it is not even
possible.” This is basic human nature. It is the impulse to hide from reality—that is, what has happened to you and other survivors.
CR:
But this happened at the same time that 6,720 soldiers were being experimented
on with LSD. This is public knowledge. And the child experimentation is only a
small portion of the MKULTRA program. This was a widespread secret project. I
have a pathetic email from an armed services veteran.
This
gentleman says, “I am one of the 6,720 enlisted soldiers used at
JW: You mention the use of military bases in your book for these experiments.
You intimate that a lot of what happened to you and other survivors somehow was
conducted at military bases.
CR:
There are many survivors who remember being at different government
facilities. I remember being at an underground facility where there was a
missile. I am assuming it had to be at a
JW: How widespread was the use of the Nazi mind control doctors by the
CR:
I don’t think there was a lot. I don’t think you could hide a lot. This would
reduce the number to hundreds. But I do believe there were many other American
doctors who were already in institutions in the
JW: These are American doctors you are talking about?
CR:
Yes. And Canadians.
JW: There is an organization called the False Memory Syndrome
Foundation, which attempts to discredit the kinds of memories you recall.
CR:
Some of the false memory syndrome doctors who started that organization have
proven to be bogus. There are certainly buried memories that are true and did
happen. However, some of those very same doctors who support groups like the
False Memory Syndrome Foundation also participated in the MKULTRA
experiments.
JW: Some who speak out publicly like you seem to fear being killed. Dr.
Corydon Hammond, for example, raised the possibility in a 1992 lecture that he
could be killed for speaking about such experimentation and abuses. Do you feel
that your life is in danger for speaking out?
CR:
In the beginning, I felt that my life could very much be in danger. My doctor
encouraged me to write everything down that I remembered. He didn’t say he
believed or disbelieved. But he encouraged me to write down everything I
remembered and to put it away in a safety deposit box. He also told me to tell
as many people as I could. We felt that by being open and honest I would be
safer than by keeping my mouth shut.
JW: How is your life now? Have you gotten your life together after all
you have been through? Is there any hope?
CR:
There is definitely hope. Absolutely. I function at a
very high level now. And I functioned at a very high level when I was dissociative. I managed a corporation that did over 6
million dollars in business. I have gotten myself together because I now can
enjoy life freely. I don’t need to dissociate and worry about lost time. I have
a wonderful family and grandchildren. I have hobbies. I fish.
JW: So you are what our society would call a normal human being?
CR:
I am very normal. You must believe that I wouldn’t choose to be public.
However, very early on as these memories began to return, I prayed that God
would provide a way for me to make some of this worthwhile, to bring this out
into the public and let people know that it happened so that it doesn’t happen
again.
JW: At the beginning of the interview, you
mentioned that you love this country and you are happy living here. How do you
reconcile your feelings about the country with what you say happened to you?
CR:
Because I have the freedom of speech to actually come out and say what happened
to me without fear of repercussion. I believe we here in the United States have
more freedoms than anyone in the world. Because of those freedoms, I can speak
out and prevent possibly another part of history repeating itself. So I do love
my country. I wouldn’t want to live any other place.
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