More Guinea Pigs

Giving LSD to someone without his informed consent opens the door to the "ruthless modification of people's minds," declared Dr. Judd Marmor, president of the American Psychiatric Association, after he heard the circumstances of the suicide of Biochemist Frank Olson (TIME, July 21). Even if done for security reasons, added Marmor, such experiments as those conducted by the CIA are unethical.

Last week similar experiments, all done on the ground of national security, came to light at a Pentagon news conference held by Dr. Van M. Sim, chief of medical research at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal. For twelve years beginning in 1955, affirmed Sim, the Army, as part of a chemical-warfare testing program, gave LSD to 585 men. Later in the week the Army revealed that another group of 2,490 volunteers were given other hallucinogens, and in some cases BZ, a temporarily incapacitating gas.

What are the symptoms displayed by someone under the influence of these substances? Would the drugs help break down a person's defenses during interrogation? These were some of the questions the early experimenters sought to answer. As for LSD, the Army found it too "unpredictable" and "unreliable" for wartime use. No conclusions about the other tests have been revealed.

No Suicides. It was no secret that the Army had tested drugs on G.I.s. What interested reporters at the press conference was the clarification of the ground rules for the LSD experiments. After psychological and physical screening, the soldiers, all volunteers, were told they would be given a chemical that might influence their behavior--but not what it was. Said Sim: "You are prejudicing the experiment by leading them into suggestive thoughts about it."

As a reward for their participation in the program, the soldiers were given three-day passes. There had been no suicides after the tests, said Sun, although he admitted that only 10% of the subjects had been given follow-up interviews or questionnaires.

Were the soldiers ever told exactly what they had been exposed to? No, the Army admitted. But anyone who thinks he was involved in the experiments can find out now by phoning the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command. The number, says the Army helpfully, is 202-693-8065.

The Army is still conducting tests with hallucinogenic drugs and with alcohol--but only on animals. It has requested permission from the Surgeon General to do similar experiments again on humans, which Sim defends as "very important" to national security.

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