That's how quick it is because it removes your time and space. The U.S. wanted to know just how such a thing could possibly happen, and Dr. Ewen Cameron had a theory: brainwashing. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Cameron continued his work on memory and its relationship to aging. [citation needed][21]. . According to "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron,"there was more to his work at the Allan Memorial Institute than just exploring the CIA's questions about brainwashing. Stephen: So they created a manual, which basically was for intelligence personnel. And you see this actual physical manual on how to break down the human mind. Police, hospitals, government, and schools would need to use the correct psychiatric authority to stop mental contagions from spreading. Lloyd has continued to fight for recognition, recompense, and an apology. Hebb submitted his findings to the CIA, and it ended up being just the beginning. Cameron became the first director of the Allan Memorial Institute as well as the first chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill. And then she came back from Montreal and she was never the same. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. According to what his son, Duncan, told WBUR, it was 1967 when he decided to climb Street Mountain in the Adirondacks. Amory: The study, which was published a few months before Cameron died, found that Camerons methods exposed his patients to unnecessary risk, and that there was no clinical proof his methods were any more effective than standard forms of treatment. Joseph Rauh Jr. was one of the attorneys that represented the group who filed lawsuits in the mid-1980s. I mean his father was a very prominent psychiatrist, so destroying rather than preserving personal papers of someone of that prominence is a very unusual thing, especially for a family member to have done. These did nothing to calm the feud which continued through succeeding reigns to when Donald's grandson Ewen, the 13th chief, fought at the battle of Flodden where James IV was killed. His version was a continuous-loop cassette player that would deliver messages on repeat and it's even worse than it sounds. These experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the Institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postnatal depression; many were permanently debilitated after these treatments. Because it would seem to me, or I was concerned as a lawyer, that it might be a breach of the patient-doctor privilege. So I think the complaints of the doctors and nurses had reached their ears. The mentally ill were thus labelled as not only sick, but also weak. In his analysis, culture and society played a crucial role in the ability for one to function according to the demands necessary for human survival. Ben: When Amory and I spoke to Duncan Cameron about his dad, he also told us about his own work, as a lawyer. [clarification needed] Those Germans affected by the events that led to World War II were of utmost concern. (laughter). Patients would be subjected to messages repeated hundreds of thousands of times, as they were kept in their coma for up to a month. This was made into a TV mini-series directed by Anne Wheeler in 1998, called The Sleep Room, which also dramatizes the lawsuit of Cameron's ex-patients against the CIA. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, money from John Wilson McConnell of the Montreal Star, and a gift of Sir Hugh Allan's mansion on Mount Royal, the Allan Memorial Institute for psychiatry was founded. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text. He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association (19521953), Canadian Psychiatric Association (19581959),[2] American Psychopathological Association (1963),[3] Society of Biological Psychiatry (1965)[4] and the World Psychiatric Association (19611966). Photo by Courtesy of Julie Tanny For the first four years of Julie Tanny's. She was left with permanent impairments: She was unable to recognize faces, had impaired spatial recognition, and lost a good portion of her memory. Amory: Theres a reason that all the photos of Ewen Cameron are from more than 50 years ago. The victims and their lawyers want us to remember that this story isnt over. Rauh: So any documents that would show the treatment of the plaintiffs in this case were destroyed? The described types were the enemies of society and life. Cameron followed these schools in demanding that mental disturbances are diseases and somatic in nature; all psychological illness would therefore be hardwired, a product of the body and the direct result of a patient's biological structure rather than caused by social environments. The CBC says the CIA recruited Dr. Ewen Cameron a few years into MKUltra, using the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology to approach Cameron and tell him that he really, really needed to apply for one of their grants. And how his work lives on. There must have been names of patients. Amory: You're welcome to pull it out now. I think he wanted to be famous. And there some of them were high risk ones. Amory: Marian was 5 years old when her mom was admitted to the Allan for what she thinks was postpartum depression. with distinction from the University of Glasgow in 1936. Click here for the donation page. And they found his work next to worthless. It is at this juncture that he became interested with how he could effectively manipulate the brain to control and understand the processes of memory. One of the weirdest chapters in U.S. history was approved on April 13, 1953, and any time anyone says anything about "the good ol' days," when things were just better, simpler, and kinder, well, point to MKUltra and say, "Check out this madness!" These negative statements were sometimes taken from the therapy sessions Cameron conducted when patients first arrived, says Rebecca Lemov, author of "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron." ", And what about the CIA, who had approved and funded the research in the first place? We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Skip Ancestry . Dr. Morrow, says The Washington Post, had applied for a fellowship in psychiatry with Cameron. He died of a heart attack while climbing a mountain in the Adirondacks in 1967. There is no incontinence, there is no mutism, and we are continuing this intense treatment of her until we get complete depatterning.". Amory: He doesnt explicitly say that he was the one who did the destroying. These became the basis of a new social and behavioural science that he would later institute through his presidencies of the Canadian, American and World Psychiatric Associations, the American Psychopathological Association and the Society of Biological Psychiatry. Donald Ewen Cameron 24 December 1901 - 8 September 1967)[1] was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. In 1936, he also published his first book, Objective and Experimental Psychiatry which introduced his belief that psychiatry should approach the study of human behavior in a rigorous, scientific fashion rooted in biology. . Husband of Marielene Schlumberger. Alison Steel won compensation for her mother's misery in 2017, says the CBC: $100,000 in exchange for ending legal action. You can see other fellow humans. But the government agency backing his experiments at the Allan did find a way to make use of his methods. The work of Dr. Ewen Cameron may have been discredited by mainstream psychiatry, but that doesn't mean it went away completely. The psychological experimentation project, known as MK Ultra, was allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Ben: Hebb did an interview with a film producer in the 1980s, saying, quote, Cameron was irresponsible criminally stupid. In 1963, the CIA published the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation manual, and that's exactly what it sounds like guidelines on how to get people to talk. Charles Tanny was a former patient of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal in 1957. (Beyond Nuremburg, ABA Journal March 1997; News accounts of five legal cases at: The Law and Mind Control Mind Control Through Five Cases). . The FBI's FOIA Library contains many files of public interest and historical value. ", So, they went back to a 1983 court transcript, where Duncan was called to the stand to testify about what happened to his father's documents. He began his career as resident surgeon at Glasgow Infirmary, but in 1929 moved to Canada to work in the Brandon Mental Hospital. Duncan: Oh yes, he enjoyed a good joke even if they were off color. From 1939 to 1943 he was professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albany Medical College, and at the Russell Sage School of Nursing, also in the Albany area. Cameron was born on December 24, 1901, in Scotland and graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1924. Its in the Netflix show, Stranger Things: Amory: Or the hit video game Call of Duty: Ben: They're talking about it on The West Wing:C.J. Esther Schrier who was a nurse at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital tragically lost her first child at just three weeks of age. She said she received 12 boxes of her husbands papers after he died, but that, quote, If I had these papers, I wouldnt necessarily let you see them. She very slowly recovered mostly and died in 2017. A stronger personality would be able to maintain itself in heavy industrial situations, he theorised, while the weaker would not be able to cope with industrial conditions. Ben: Which brings us back to a question that no one can answer why did Dr. Cameron do what he did? Cameron also hoped to generate families capable of using authority and techniques to take measures against mental illness, which would later be apparent in Cameron's MKULTRA and MKDELTA experiments. The first was for 18 days and the second for 29 days, all while hearing endless recorded messages and being subjected to a series of electroshock therapy sessions. With the results of the Manhattan project, Cameron feared that without proper re-organization of society, atomic weapons could fall into the hands of new, fearsome aggressors. Experts must develop methods of forcefully changing attitudes and beliefs to prevent the authoritarian overlord. Amory: We definitely will. David Cameron's grandfather Ewen Donald Cameron (1906-1958) was a City of London figure who became a director at the stock brokerage house Panmure Gordon. Don't worry, it gets worse. Despite the horrific abuse, the American and Canadian psychiatric establishment closed ranks. She said: "She wasn't able to talk to me about life and regular stuff. Ex-husband of Enid Agnes Maud Watson. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1924. In compliance with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements, some of these records are no longer in the physical possession of the FBI, eliminating the FBI's capability to re-review and/or re-process this material. His work had led him to the belief that mental illness could be "cured" like, say, a broken hip might be rehabilitated. In other words, torture. Two of my sons are lawyers and they say it isnt a good idea.. Amory: But Cameron was publishing articles and giving speeches about his work throughout his life. He was there when his legal partner, Joseph Rauh, took Camerons deposition. The idea that people needed to sit down and talk about their problems was the old way of doing things, and Cameron was living in an era where things were getting more and more automated. Although society had established sanctions against the spread of infectious diseases, Cameron wanted to extend the concept of contagion to chronic anxiety. After he left, his position as chair of the department of psychiatry was handed to Robert Cleghorn. As soon as his family found out about his death, they burned all the files that this man kept in his possession. That was the case for people like Phyllis Goldberg. We put this to Harvey Weinstein, the psychiatrist we heard from earlier, whose father was a patient at the Allan. Did it work? After his mother confirmed that yes, there were 12 boxes of papers that her sons both lawyers said she probably shouldn't share, Duncan revealed that he had gone through and taken out "several papers" that identified "a particular patient." His list of credentials was so long it's impossible to list them all, but for starters, his resume included the University of Glasgow and Johns Hopkins, and in the 1930s, he was lauded for setting up a series of psychiatric clinics. ", Why MKUltra's Top Brainwashing Scientist Was A Real-Life Nightmare, "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron. [34], Naomi Klein states in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to MKUltra were not about mind control and brainwashing, but "to design a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources.' Sounds questionable? Duncan: It's really a very moving editorial. Psychiatry would play a disciplinary role. [10] There he met A. T. Mathers, Manitoba's principal psychiatrist, who convinced Cameron in 1929 to move to Brandon, the second largest city of Manitoba, Canada. Research genealogy for Donald Ewen Cameron of lambeth, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. We love making Endless Thread, and we want to be able to keep making it far into the future. Donald Ewen Cameron was born in Bridge of Allan, Scotland, the oldest son of a Presbyterian minister. Or do you remember any of --. Another patient was suffering from leg pains that no one had been able to diagnose. Tell us about your reaction to this episode or send us a story idea. Marian: It's become so embedded in our narrative, in our pop culture, without people really understanding that it happened It was real. Shes also signed on to the class-action lawsuit against McGill University, the Canadian government, and the CIA. Amory: But even on their long drives from Montreal to upstate New York, Duncan says his dad never really talked about work. Once it was down to an exact science the precise number of hours in a coma, the number and duration of electroshock treatments, the exact dosages of drugs he believed that curing mental illness could be as simple as admitting a patient, putting them through the program, and spitting out a brand new, problem-free person on the other side. At least, until after Cameron left the Allan. We encourage you to research and examine these records . It was reported that none of the patients sent to the Radio Telemetry Lab showed any signs of improvement. According to The Guardian, it started with playing tapes designed to tap into the reason the patient sought help in the first place. [16], Cameron next published Nuremberg and Its Significance. Its not a very popular mountain to climb, its steep. Which suggests it was for purposes of, not closure, but of not wanting information to come to light that was in the papers. For example, something like rock music could be created by mentally ill people and would produce mentally ill people through infection, which in turn would be transmitted to the genes. Duncan: You see, he doesn't have a scowl. He never got one. As time has worn on, its become the families of those victims who shoulder the burden. I'm the oldest son of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron and Jean Cameron. Amory: Immortal Technique is rapping about it: Ben: But for those who have had to deal with the fallout of MK-ULTRA on a personal level, the fact that the program rarely gets discussed outside the realm of pop culture can feel discouraging. We shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry we did it.". Dr. Ewen Cameron wanted to win a Nobel Prize for his work in psychiatry. He had various people record the tapes sometimes including the patient's loved ones and it was, on the whole, incredibly traumatizing. Amory: Ben and I are in an apartment in Washington D.C. thats bursting with morning light and books, and were flipping through some of our hosts old family photos. Harvey: It is frustrating, and if you talk about a story with no end, I think the important thing to remember is that it isn't just the patients who went through this, it was their families. Rauh: --Well, I will put it another way. The manual got updated in 1980, but the techniques that have come about including things like waterboarding and restraint in a "coffin-like wooden box" still harken back to that original research. [25], Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by "erasing" existing memories and "reprogramming" the psyche. Research genealogy for donald ewen Cameron of Melbourne, Victoria, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. John Marks: The Allan Memorial Institute under Cleghorn commissioned a study of his work, which is absolutely or almost absolutely unprecedented in the psychiatric field. She's the exception, though, and the CBC says that 2020 saw others like Lana Ponting, who was just 16 when she was sent to the sleep room hoping that year, it would finally be their year, thanks to a class action lawsuit filed in 2019. He did technically, because nothing says "wonders" has to be a good thing. And that kind of explains why, when they were ordered to stop their depatterning and psychic driving of patients, they just sort of didn't. Amory: And, they delivered, with a full transcript of Duncans deposition from November, 1983. The lawsuits were dismissed, even though it was later shown there were a higher-than-usual number of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, presumably to increase Cameron's subject pool. Her family sued, first based on the treatment alone, then again, after discovering she was a part of the MKUltra program. He promoted a philosophy where chaos could be prevented by removing the weak from society. And so even all these years later, it's part of my life. [31][2] In her book, In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada,[32] author Anne Collins explored the history of Cameron and Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute. In 1951 a few years before the U.S. government and the CIA approved MKUltra there was a top secret meeting held at Montreal's Ritz-Carlton. Amory: This is information that may have proven invaluable in holding Cameron, as well as McGill, the CIA, and the Canadian Government accountable for what happened at the Allan. About 55 families of victims who underwent medical experimentation in the 1950s and 1960s are suing for millions of dollars. In 1936, he moved to Massachusetts to become director of the research division at Worcester State Hospital only 1 year later. Particularly because we put that question to him today. Marian Cameron. Her niece later said, "She had electric shock equipment put on her head so many times that it [remained] in her subconscious." Amory: What was your father like as a dad? Duncan: They got close to the top and James looked around and my father had passed away. Ben: But, as human experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute, and MK-ULTRAs mind control efforts, fade into history, reduced to references in tv shows and video game plot points, there are troubling examples of these techniques still in use today. [citation needed] He furthermore wanted to understand the problems of memory caused by aging, believing that the aged brain experienced psychosis. Ben: Street Mountain is a strange choice for a bucket list. Amory: Eventually though, it wasnt just Camerons successor who was calling him out. sister. On the weekends, you'd think he would go out and mow the lawn or bask in the sun or go play golf or tennis, but none of it. [30][bettersourceneeded], In 1980, the Canadian investigative news program The Fifth Estate interviewed two former patients of Cameron's who were among several of his ex patients who were at that time suing the CIA for the long term effects of Cameron's treatment. Unfortunately, a lot of what went on within them has been lost: In 1973, the majority of the documents associated with MKUltra were destroyed in a massive (and not-at-all-suspicious) purge. I then *went through* the papers, because I felt that it would be improper to leave in the papers any paper that identified patients. 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