Which institutions and researchers were explicitly named in surviving MKUltra documents?
Executive summary
The surviving MKULTRA record set explicitly names a handful of researchers and institutions — most prominently Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron and the Allan Memorial Institute (McGill), Dr. Charles Geschickter and the Geschickter Fund/Georgetown connections, and Dr. Harris Isbell at the NIMH Addiction Research Center — while also showing lists that identify dozens more institutions and 185 nongovernment researchers though many individual names remain redacted or were destroyed [1] [2] [3] [4]. The historical record is therefore a mix of concrete attributions in surviving documents and significant gaps caused by deliberate destruction and redaction [4] [5].
1. The clearest, named case: Ewen Cameron and the Allan Memorial Institute
Surviving subproject records and secondary archival releases repeatedly identify psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen (Ewen) Cameron and his Montreal-based Allan Memorial Institute as a focal point of MKULTRA subproject activity (often cited as Subproject 68), with CIA funding routed through a front called the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology; internal documents show Cameron received funds to carry out experiments there [1] [2] [4].
2. The Geschickter Fund and Georgetown links appear by name in documents
Archival releases and the National Security Archive collection reveal that the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research — led by Dr. Charles Geschickter, a Georgetown professor — was used as a covert conduit for CIA grants and is explicitly named in surviving documents as a vehicle that steered MKULTRA money to projects at Georgetown and elsewhere [2] [6].
3. NIMH Addiction Research Center and Dr. Harris Isbell are explicitly referenced
Congressional testimony and surviving materials identify experiments conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health’s Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky, and name Dr. Harris Isbell in relation to extended LSD testing on institutionalized subjects — a program the CIA later described in its internal accounts and which appears in the post‑investigation record [1] [2].
4. Institutional lists: 80 institutions and 44 universities are documented, but many names withheld
CIA testimony to Congress and Senate records enumerate roughly 80 institutions used in the program — including 44 colleges or universities, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and penal institutions — and say the Agency had identified 185 nongovernment researchers and assistants; those tallies appear in hearings and the Agency’s submissions, though the public record often omits or redacts many individual names [7] [3] [8].
5. Stanford, other university archives and surviving invoice collections name some recipients
Photocopies of invoices, receipts and memoranda deposited with university archives (for example, materials sent to Stanford University in 1977) explicitly link certain subprojects and financial transactions to institutional addresses, meaning specific university departments and projects appear by name in surviving paperwork even where individual researcher names may be omitted [9] [8].
6. What the surviving CIA files themselves state and what they conceal
The CIA’s own declassified report and the single surviving copies of agency manuals confirm that MKULTRA operated through Technical Services Division channels and front foundations, and that many projects and some researchers are named in the fiscal records that survived the 1973 document destruction — but the agency also acknowledges gaps, redactions and the destruction of many files, so the surviving corpus is partial by design [4] [5].
7. The interpretive frame: named vs. unnamed, knowing vs. unwitting
Surviving documents explicitly name certain figures and institutions (Cameron/Allan Memorial, Geschickter/Geschickter Fund/Georgetown, Isbell/NIMH) and provide comprehensive institutional tallies to Congress, yet the record also repeatedly stresses that many collaborators may have been unwitting and that Agency assurances of confidentiality complicated later disclosure; Senate and archival sources make clear both concrete attributions and enduring lacunae created by redaction and destruction [3] [7] [6].