Of course I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?
Operation Midnight Climax was an operation known only to Richard Helms and Gottlieb’s Technical Support Division; it was a free-wheeling illicit criminal operation headed by George Hunter White, an Army Captain, OSS officer, veteran agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) who was also a CIA operative. During the day, White worked as an FBN agent to keep psychoactive drugs out of circulation, and when night fell, he and his minions dispensed these drugs widely to strangers in in San Francisco and New York. Thousands of unwitting men were lured to CIA-sponsored drug and sex sessions by prostitutes at CIA’s “safe houses.” The prostitutes received $100 a night and were guaranteed protection from police harassment. The walls of CIA’s bordellos were decorated with photos of women in bondage and other suggestive sexual images. White had unrestricted use of surveillance technology; LSD and other mind-altering substances were slipped into the johns’ liquor by the hookers, and their sexual encounters were monitored and recorded from behind two-way mirrors. These taped sexual encounters were useful for blackmailing johns — some of who were prominent upstanding citizens.
White would watch the drugged sex while sipping martinis; to maintain his Jekyll-and-Hyde routine he reportedly relied heavily on alcohol and drugs. (Lee and Shlain. Acid Dreams, 1992; Cockburn and St. Clair Whiteout, 1998; San Francisco Weekly, 2012) “The agency, TIME Magazine noted, “appeared to be experiencing its own form of madness.” (2012).
Source(s)
Alliance for Human Research Protection. 1953–1964: Operation Midnight Climax — CIA’s lurid ventures into sex, hookers and LSD. 18 January 2015. <https://ahrp.org/1953-1964-operation-midnight-climax-cias-lurid-ventures-into-sex-hookers-and-lsd/>.