Church Committee, Final Report, Book I (S. Rept. 94-755, 1976): the Bureau of Narcotics in the CIA's drug testing

Passages of the Church Committee's Book I stating that undercover officers of the Bureau of Narcotics, acting for the CIA, gave LSD to unwitting subjects, some of them "informers or members of suspect criminal elements," and that "There is some question as to the Commissioner of Narcotics' knowledge about the project."

Date

1976-04-26

Kind

hearing

Source

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (PDF of the report)

Retrieved

2026-10-12

Docket

S. Rept. 94-755, Book I

Rights

A report of the United States Senate, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

Book I of the final report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, “Foreign and Military Intelligence,” discusses the CIA’s MKULTRA program. In the passage at PDF page 391 it states: “The final phase of LSD testing involved surreptitious administration to unwitting nonvolunteer subjects in normal life settings by undercover officers of the Bureau of Narcotics acting for the CIA.”

It quotes a CIA statement of the advantage of the arrangement: “test subjects could be sought and cultivated within the setting of narcotics control. Some subjects have been informers or members of suspect criminal elements from whom the [Bureau of Narcotics] has obtained results of operational value through the tests.” At PDF page 407 the report says the project was “conducted in coordination with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs” and that “There is some question as to the Commissioner of Narcotics’ knowledge about the project.”

The page numbers here are those of the 642-page PDF; the printed page numbers were not recorded. The report concerns the CIA’s program and the Bureau’s part in it. Its only link to organized crime is the phrase “suspect criminal elements,” and this archive draws no further connection from it.