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Artichoke Project — Photo Evidence

Photo evidence filed under Artichoke Project — 1 images on this page. Scan the list and open any image for the full picture and its write-up.

About This Cluster

Project ARTICHOKE was the CIA's covert precursor to MKUltra, launched in 1951 to study "special" interrogation methods — drugs, hypnosis, and total isolation — often on unwitting subjects. The investigation tracks it because researchers cite the declassified ARTICHOKE record, including a January 22, 1954 memo weighing whether a subject could be induced to attempt an assassination involuntarily, when arguing that a programmed shooter is documented CIA capability rather than speculation. This cluster holds the scanned primary-source document filed under that heading.

The single image here is a scan of the CIA's January 31, 1975 "Memorandum for the Record" on Project ARTICHOKE, which summarizes the program's history: drug and hypnosis experiments under Project BLUEBIRD as early as 1949-50, drug-assisted interrogations by 1951, and the 1952 transfer of the program to the Office of Security. The document is real and sits in the CIA's own reading room; what remains an open question is whether any of this history bears on the Charlie Kirk case, and no evidence has established that it does.

View the 1975 memo scan, then read the two assassination-feasibility memo pages in the CIA Assassin peer cluster. The site's written analysis is at Project Artichoke Memo and MKUltra Program under Gov Mind Control.