donald ewen cameron familydonald ewen cameron family

And the funeral was yet another opportunity for Marian and her siblings to learn more about the mother who had been absent for so much of their childhoods. That's absolutely the stuff of a terrifying Netflix horror series, but it was very real and it destroyed an unknown number of lives. Duncan: It's really a very moving editorial. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. "Madness: The Secret Mission for Mind Control and the People Who Paid the Price" an investigative series in 5 parts unravels the shocking history of CIA-funded mind-control experiments. He clearly had his mind set on doing unorthodox research long before the Agency front started to fund him. That right there is getting into some shady territory, but the promise of a $10,000 grant the equivalent of just over $100,000 today had to be pretty tempting. Thus, this group would have to be studied and controlled as a contagious social disease. The Canadian government also funded the project. Duncan: Not really, I certainly don't know anything about the treatments he was using, I didnt know anything about that. Amory: Theres a reason that all the photos of Ewen Cameron are from more than 50 years ago. Hebb who did pay the students for their participation basically put them in a room for 24 hours, in a set-up that deprived them of all sensory input. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. The Guardian talked to Alison Steel, Jean's daughter and one of the many family members trying to shine a light on what was done to their loved ones without their consent. in psychological medicine from the University of Glasgow in 1924, a D.P.M. In 1929 he moved to Canada where he worked in the Brandon Mental Hospital in Manitoba as the physician in charge. She was a former captain of the Scottish field hockey team, a competitive tennis player,[11] and lecturer in mathematics at the University of Glasgow. But none of us trained in psychiatry. Ben: Robert Cleghorn, a former member of Camerons staff, took over after Cameron stepped down. Ben: Did you ever get a sense of at least some of the things that he was trying to accomplish while he was at the Allan? Here in the hospital Cameron could observe how the psychiatric patient resembled patients with other diseases that were not psychiatric in nature. Cameron placed the psychiatric treatment unit inside of the hospital and inspected its success. [citation needed]. While he didn't name names or give specifics, he did say that papers "related to patients were destroyed.". Her niece later said, "She had electric shock equipment put on her head so many times that it [remained] in her subconscious." [22], During the 1950s and 1960s, Cameron became involved in what has later become known as the MKUltra mind control program, which was covertly sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[6] and which eventually led to the publication of the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual. Duncan: Well, I think that I would feel sad about that. On March 12, her records show she was considered "depatterned": She could no longer stand, speak, could barely swallow, was incontinent, and required treatment by an obstetrician for severe bleeding. Ben: As for the CIAs MK-ULTRA program itself, it never had an official end date. Not only was Ewen Cameron running the Allan Memorial, but he was leading psychiatric organizations, he was teaching at McGill University, and he was still seeing private patients. There are movies like Gaslight and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And in a lot of ways, modern psychiatry has completely left behind the man who once dominated its ranks. The described types were the enemies of society and life. "[H]e was born in. And they haven't been super successful. So I think in a certain way they believed that what fiction writers could come up with, somebody could actually make real. There are a few ways to reach us: This content was originally created for audio. She was left with permanent impairments: She was unable to recognize faces, had impaired spatial recognition, and lost a good portion of her memory. That could be heightened with various drugs, eventually was replaced by positive messages, and the so-called "psychic driving" would continue. After one test he noted: "Although the patient was prepared by both prolonged sensory isolation (35 days) and by repeated depatterning, and although she received 101 days of positive driving, no favourable results were obtained." The behaviour of a mental patient could resemble the behaviour of a patient with, for example, syphilis, and then a somatic cause could be deduced for a psychological illness. While guys like Freud encouraged talking through problems, Cameron thought things like electroshock therapy and drug cocktails could be used to physically change the brain and get rid of the illness in question. The legacy can be seen in the torture techniques employed in Northern Ireland and in Guantanamo Bay. And I feel for them for that. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text. He furthered his diagnostic definitions of clinical states such as anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. When it came time to evaluate Nazi leaders ahead of the Nuremberg Trials, he was one of a group of internationally renowned mental health professionals who were sent to decide just what was going on in the heads of some of the worst war criminals the world had ever seen. I'm the oldest son of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron and Jean Cameron. Ben: Sure. And Camerons part of that. The human significance of his dark legacy was brought to public attention when nine of his Canadian victims filed lawsuits in 1980s twenty-one years after Camerons death. Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. 100, Father, Son and CIA by Harvey Weinstein p. 101, Last edited on 16 February 2023, at 19:10, "Society of Biological Psychiatry 65th Annual Meeting Program Book (p. 14)", "World Psychiatric Association Chronology", "Current Comment: Psychiatric Examination of Rudolf Hess", The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control, "Doctor Looked After the Sick, And Looked Around for the CIA", "A History of Secret CIA Mind Control Research", "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron", Stunning tale of brainwashing, the CIA and an unsuspecting Scots researcher, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Ewen_Cameron&oldid=1139756014, A passive man who "is afraid to say what he really thinks" and "will stand anything, and stands for nothing". The FBI's FOIA Library contains many files of public interest and historical value. Ian Donald Cameron is geboren in het jaar 1932 in Blairmore House, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, zoon van Ewen Donald CAMERON en Enid Agnes Maud LEVITA. We shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry we did it.". That was in December of 1959, and according to the lawsuit (via the Consumer Law Group), Cameron diagnosed Morrow as having "nervousness and tension." Ben: But the Canadian and US governments could take accountability for their support of Cameron. And you see this actual physical manual on how to break down the human mind. [8] Canada. Ben: So its fitting that, today, most of what people hear about the CIAs search for mind control also seems to come from fantasy and popular fiction. Although society had established sanctions against the spread of infectious diseases, Cameron wanted to extend the concept of contagion to chronic anxiety. . Heads up that some elements (i.e. Which suggests it was for purposes of, not closure, but of not wanting information to come to light that was in the papers. Alison Steel won compensation for her mother's misery in 2017, says the CBC: $100,000 in exchange for ending legal action. Jean Steel was another one of Cameron's patients, and like the others she didn't sign up to be a part of MKUltra, depatterning, or psychic driving at all. It has to do with another of his Adirondack hikes that changed the Cameron family forever. He began to develop the discipline of social psychiatry which concentrated on the roles of interpersonal interaction, family, community and culture in the emergence and amelioration of emotional disturbance. That would have been the cultural environment in which people like Sidney Gottlieb grew up. Jim: But again, you know, the deposition transcript, you're going to have to rely on that, like we did. If I put you through this program, within 24 hours to 48 hours you'll be in a diagnosable psychotic state. 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. And this is a picture up with my brother, Stuart. This personality type poses a danger to those closest to them, especially children. [citation needed]. It was a heart attack and was very sudden. When then-CIA director Stansfield Turner testified about the program in 1977, he said (via the Smithsonian) that the bottom line was to develop "the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior." That, says McGill University, was the work of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist who performed experiments so horrifying he's been called "Scotland's Mengele." The psychological experimentation project, known as MK Ultra, was allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. You talked a little bit about this but what was the impact on the family when some of this news started to come out about the CIA and some of the treatment and stuff like that? Therefore, society should function to select out the weak and unwanted, those apt towards fearsome aggression that threatened society. [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.' I'm sure that they loved him very much and knew him in a very different way. This must be very difficult, very complicated for them. Typically, I would show up there and, if it was a Friday, ask if I could have a lift down to Lake Placid. Ben Brock Johnson: So what do you have in front of you here? Thank you! Amory: This is a hard reality for the family that Ewen Cameron left behind. 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. What Hebb and Cameron both have in common is their contribution in establishing the scientific foundation for CIAs two-stage psychological torture method. Duncan: Oh yes, he enjoyed a good joke even if they were off color. father. Amory: He remembers his dad working a lot during this time, which, definitely tracks. And he put Camerons treatment program under the microscope. Yeah so it was sad. He told The Scotsman: "Cameron's entire focus seemed to shift after the Nuremberg Trials. [17] Cameron argued that it was necessary for behavioral scientists to act as the social planners of society, and that the United Nations could provide a conduit for implementing his ideas for applying psychiatric elements to global governance and politics. McGill's then-director of psychology, Dr. Donald Hebb, took the money and set up experiments using his ready-and-waiting pool of test subjects: students. Like Freud, Cameron maintained that the family was the nucleus of social behavior and anxieties later in life were spawned during childhood. Duncan: I started work at the State Department just a day or so before Kennedy was assassinated. [citation needed][21]. They also asked him for clarification about what happened to his father's personal papers and patient records, and he replied, "Well, I didn't destroy the documents. . Because his dad isnt around to do it himself. (Rubenstein LS. "He was supposed to do wonders with people with depression or mental health issues." Harvey Weinstein: Complicated question, we all have motivations for the things that we do. We encourage you to research and examine these records to . Particularly because we put that question to him today. AIan Cameron followed in the footsteps of his father and became a director at Panmure Gordon in 1957. Stephen: So they created a manual, which basically was for intelligence personnel. Ben: Her dad couldnt afford childcare, so soon after Marians mother went into the Allan, social services took Marian and her two younger brothers away because there was no parent to take care of them. (McCoy, 2007) Indeed, Hebb and Camerons contribution as pioneers who designed the psychological paradigm for torture used by the CIA was acknowledged by The McGill Daily, in 2012. [citation needed]. Amory: And, they delivered, with a full transcript of Duncans deposition from November, 1983. The second stage involved extreme, high voltage multiple electroshock treatments three times daily. His goal was to standardize his treatment, and once he did it for schizophrenia, he believed he would open a "gateway through which we might pass into a new field of psychotherapeutic methods." They had 11 children: Allan Francis Cameron, John Donald Cameron and 9 other children. Were they *destroyed* or did you just take the patients name out? 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. Police, hospitals, government, and schools would need to use the correct psychiatric authority to stop mental contagions from spreading. Kinzer: If Cameron had failed to find an effective means of mind control despite carrying out the most reckless experiments, in which he was willing to take any kind of a grotesque step in an effort to find that key, this must have helped feed Gottlieb's conclusion that the whole thing didn't exist. Her family sued, first based on the treatment alone, then again, after discovering she was a part of the MKUltra program. 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. We encourage you to research and examine these records . Ben: In photos, the Cameron family seems happy, a candid shot of Ewen Cameron that looks to be from a garden party shows the psychiatrist in a skinny tie and jacket, horn-rimmed glasses and short cropped white hair. Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, 17t. His successor at Allan, Robert Cleghorn, would later write (via "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron,""Cameron's controversial practices [are] now thoroughly discredited." When asked about the decision to involve Cameron in MK-ULTRA, John Gittinger, the CIA officer in charge of monitoring his work said, quote, Now that was a foolish mistake. Those with anxieties or insecurities and who had trouble with the state of the world were labelled as "the weak"; in Cameron's analysis, they could not cope with life and had to be isolated from society by "the strong". I'm sure part of him very much wanted to be the person who cures mental illness. She said that at the time, Cameron was something of a celebrity. And he was a fast driver. Donald Hebb and Ewen Cameron were competitors; they did not collaborate, though Cameron incorporated Hebbs sensory isolation techniques into his own diabolical arsenal of psychiatrys instruments of torture. Ewen Cameron was fulfilling one of the items on his life bucket list: to climb Street Mountain. Like, did she always have problems? And he said, Oh, gosh. She goes, No. She was the one that was gonna go and conquer the world. Memorials. Results were telling: They became super sensitive to the sensory stimuli they did receive, and then, things started getting really weird. Maybe the people responsible are waiting for all of us to forget. The title is The Understanding Man. Lake Placid in particular, and the northern Adirondacks in general, have lost suddenly, tragically, but in a sense, beautifully, probably their most distinguished citizen. In other words, torture. As the CBC notes, it's sourced pretty heavily from Cameron's work, and talks about things like "deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, pain, hypnosis and narcosis," and the source of their research? So we dont have access to Cameron's thoughts on his own legacy. 5, p. 2227) As a result of the lawsuit, the CIA agreed to pay $750,000, the maximum allowed under U.S. law, to settle a case without conceding liability. According to "Brainwashing's Avatar: The Curious Career of Dr. Ewen Cameron,"he left his position at Allan and his patients in 1964. . In addition to LSD, he experimented with various paralytic drugs such as curare and electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. Cameron wanted to build an inventive psychiatric institution to determine rapid ways for societal control while demanding a psychological economy that did not center itself around guilt and guilt complexes. Ben: But do you even though you had nothing to do with it do you have any feelings of sadness about those folks and what they've gone through? Ben: The manual was all about how to obtain information from quote resistant sources. It went on to become the basis for the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Velma Orlikow, for instance, was dealing with postpartum depression. [37], Whether or not Cameron was aware that funding for his experiments was coming from the CIA is unclear; it has been argued that he would have carried out the exact same experiments if funding had come from a source without ulterior motives. 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. Now, a recent court decision has. Ben: Hebb did an interview with a film producer in the 1980s, saying, quote, Cameron was irresponsible criminally stupid. Contagion to chronic anxiety Panmure Gordon in 1957 psychological experimentation project, known as MK,. A celebrity was originally created for audio contribution in establishing the scientific for... 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