The U.S. wanted to know just how such a thing could possibly happen, and Dr. Ewen Cameron had a theory: brainwashing. Lloyd has continued to fight for recognition, recompense, and an apology. Ben: Over and over, weve heard from victims of Dr. Ewen Camerons brutal experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute. To see some of the things that have happened are very upsetting. Ben Brock Johnson: So what do you have in front of you here? And Mary Morrow? 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. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Harvey: Here he is trying to reach the peak, trying to climb the mountain, reach this goal. [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. She said that at the time, Cameron was something of a celebrity. Cameron's concerns extended to his policies determining who should have children and advance to positions of authority. She was not staying in this little town. A possessive type, filled with jealousy and demanding utmost loyalty. First I have to say that my father was exceedingly committed to his field. Rauh: --Well, I will put it another way. In 1984, New Scientist reported on a lawsuit filed on behalf of some of the people who ended up a part of MKUltra's Sub-project 68. So you can see that the work of Ewen Cameron, filtered through Gottlieb, definitely informs the interrogation techniques, if we want to call them that, that the United States has been using on its prisoners in Guantanamo and in black sites around the world. This must be very difficult, very complicated for them. And when you get up to the top, its completely wooded, so theres no panoramic view after all the hard climbing. Ex-husband of Enid Agnes Maud Watson. Ben: As for the CIAs MK-ULTRA program itself, it never had an official end date. And he put Camerons treatment program under the microscope. All Germans on trial would be assessed according to the likeliness for committing the crime. Advancing Voluntary, Informed Consent to Medical Intervention, Cameron was an internationally prominent psychiatrist who developed torture techniques on his involuntary hospitalized patients mostly women. In this manner, somatic causes could be compared. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Cameron continued his work on memory and its relationship to aging. Duncan Cameron: This is a picture of the whole family. Duncan: Oh yes, he enjoyed a good joke even if they were off color. There is no such thing as closure. Patients would be subjected to messages repeated hundreds of thousands of times, as they were kept in their coma for up to a month. He died of a heart attack while climbing a mountain in the Adirondacks in 1967. 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: Duncan struggles dealing with his dads legacy because he cant speak to why his dad did what he did. Amory: Jim Turner was one of two prosecutors on the case. [citation needed]; if the greater population of Germany saw the atrocities of World War II, they would surely submit to a re-organized system of justice. It affected a lot of people. While more is known about the experiments of Dr. Ewen Cameron than about some of the other MKUltra projects, there's still a lot of information missing. It was the start of a series of experiments backed by the British, the Americans, and the Canadians, and they wanted to know what prolonged sensory deprivation actually did to a person. Like in Nicaragua, where he was The New York Times Bureau Chief. He had a Mercedes. This third type needs, This page was last edited on 16 February 2023, at 19:10. Research genealogy for Donald Ewen Cameron of Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, USA, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. 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. His focus on children included the rights to protection against outmoded, doctrinaire tactics, and the necessity for the implantation of taboos and inhibitions from their parents. That was the case for people like Phyllis Goldberg. She very slowly recovered mostly and died in 2017. About 55 families of victims who underwent medical experimentation in the 1950s and 1960s are suing for millions of dollars. He wanted to know if it was possible to wipe a person's mind and reinstall a new personality. "[H]e was born in. Experts must develop methods of forcefully changing attitudes and beliefs to prevent the authoritarian overlord. More about the Cameron family name; Sponsored by Ancestry. His work had led him to the belief that mental illness could be "cured" like, say, a broken hip might be rehabilitated. 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." Just as Sigrid Schultz stated in Germany will try it again, Cameron fostered a fear for Germans and their genetic determination. We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the Cameron family. Cameron quickly found patients didn't want to listen to the messages. 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. "A number of experiments at McGill University.". Cameron reported to John Gittinger, an agent in charge of overseeing parts of MKUltra. This is Part 5. I'm sure that they loved him very much and knew him in a very different way. Psychiatry would play a disciplinary role. During those years, Cameron began to expand on his thoughts about the interrelationships of mind and body, developing a reputation as a psychiatrist who could bridge the gap between the organic, structural neurologists, and the psychiatrists whose knowledge of anatomy was limited to maps of the mind as opposed to maps of the brain. 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. Rauh: A question that Mr. Turner wanted me to ask was what happened to the papers identifying the patients? And how his work lives on. And it was a great shock to everybody because he was 65 and in many ways, you know, going full throttle and at the top of his career. 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. 22 As the Watergate scandal broke in 1973, MKUltra was officially ordered to be shut down by the CIA. They stressed how they'd been unwilling participants, and that they'd gone to the institute for other issues. But we do have his son, Duncan Cameron. [38], Cameron died of a heart attack while hiking with his son in the Adirondack Mountains on September 8, 1967. And he didn't achieve that either. 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." Charles Tanny was a former patient of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal in 1957. In 1946, Cameron introduced the practice of the day hospital, the first of its kind in North America, permitting patients to remain at home while receiving treatment at the institute during the day, thus avoiding unnecessary hospitalization and allowing the patients to maintain ties with their community and family. Donald Cameron of Lochiel (c.1700 - October 1748), was an influential Highland Clan Chief known for his magnanimous and gallant nature. Hij is getrouwd met (Niet openbaar), ze kregen 1 kind. And, until theres true accountability for what happened and what is still happening, it never will be. 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. 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. Everyone who makes a monthly donation will get access to upcoming bonus content from the making of our series. Many spent this period of time in what he called the "sleep room," where they were drugged into a medically-induced coma that they were brought out of only to be given three meals a day and the occasional trip to the bathroom. Donald Hebb and Ewen Cameron were competitors; they did not collaborate, though Cameron incorporated Hebb's sensory isolation techniques into his own diabolical arsenal of psychiatry's instruments of torture. And this is a picture up with my brother, Stuart. And they are still being asked to by victims and their families, 60 years later. And he always had a little book of science fiction by the bedside. You know, my job was to look out for the cops. And these are pictures of him, these are both in the Adirondack Mountains. Birthdate: June 04, 1906. Cameron stated, "Get it understood how dangerous these damaged, sick personalities are to ourselves and above all, to our children, whose traits are taking form and we shall find ways to put an end to them." Amory: Eventually though, it wasnt just Camerons successor who was calling him out. [28] His work was inspired and paralleled by the psychiatrist William Sargant, who was also involved with the intelligence services and experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage. . There is no incontinence, there is no mutism, and we are continuing this intense treatment of her until we get complete depatterning.". He received an M.B., Ch.B. Amory: This is a hard reality for the family that Ewen Cameron left behind. Family 9 - Donald CAMERON 34, wife Agnes 30, children John 18, Margaret 13, Ann 12, Donald 10, Christian 8, Alexander 6, Dugald 2, Duncan 1/2 (see Donald Cameron) Family 10 - Duncan CAMERON 30 unmarried, sister Mrs McLENNAN 28 and Catherine McLENNAN 5 He had patients. [27] Such consequences included incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents. He also organized the structure of mental health services in the western half of the province, establishing 10 functioning clinics; this model was used as the blueprint for similar efforts in Montreal and a forerunner of 1960s community health models. Tell us about your reaction to this episode or send us a story idea. Alison Steel won compensation for her mother's misery in 2017, says the CBC: $100,000 in exchange for ending legal action. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Hij is overleden in het jaar 2010 in Near Toulon, France. If we can succeed in inventing means of changing their attitudes and beliefs, we shall find ourselves in possession of measures which, if wisely used, may be employed in freeing ourselves from their attitudes and beliefs in other fields which have greatly contributed to the instability of our period by their propensity for holding up progress, In Cameron's book Life is For Living, published in 1948, he expressed a concern for the German race in general. Ben: Im Ben Brock Johnson, and youre listening to Endless Thread, the show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. And they haven't been super successful. Memorials. Duncan Cameron: No. Ewen Cameron made the hike with Duncans younger brother, James. The work of Dr. Ewen Cameron may have been discredited by mainstream psychiatry, but that doesn't mean it went away completely. That's absolutely the stuff of a terrifying Netflix horror series, but it was very real and it destroyed an unknown number of lives. John Marks observes, Ewen Cameron did not need the CIA to corrupt him. "Now, that was a foolish mistake. And Camerons part of that. The line between fantasy and reality blurred. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text. So I think the complaints of the doctors and nurses had reached their ears. He was there when his legal partner, Joseph Rauh, took Camerons deposition. While he didn't name names or give specifics, he did say that papers "related to patients were destroyed.". Not, at least, until well into 1965, months after they were told to end the experiments. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1924. 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. Heres documentarian Stephen Bennett, whose film Eminent Monsters looks at the real echoes of Camerons work in government interrogation programs today. They fear the stranger, they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die." Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu. Donald Ewen Cameron was the key figure in the Montreal experiments. Toby Ziegler:In the '50s, it was the CIA mind control research program begun in response to the Chinese attempt on U.S. prisoners. Peterborough County. Take a guess. 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. Sarah Anne Johnson: I imagine this is very difficult for his family. He died three years later. 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. Genealogy profile for Major Donald of 4th Chief Clunes "Old '45" Cameron Major Cameron . Ben: But the Canadian and US governments could take accountability for their support of Cameron. It's not clear how many patients Dr. Ewen Cameron's treatments destroyed, but some families have come forward with stories of what was done to their loved ones. 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. His death occurred while climbing a mountain. 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. . Ben: Would you have anything that you would want to say to Dr. Cameron or his family? He moved to Upstate New York where he studied aging and memory at two hospitals in Albany. The mentally ill were thus labelled as not only sick, but also weak. It petered out in the early 60s as the programs director, Sidney Gottlieb, came to a realization. Cameron began to base some of his notions on race, as is seen in his theories regarding the German people. He was always attracted to these subjects for which there was no easy answer. It's Boston local news in one concise, fun and informative email. Duncan: Thats my recollection, that any documents that related to patients were destroyed. The personality types are as follows: Cameron believed that a society in which psychiatry built and developed the institutions of government, schools, prisons and hospitals would be one in which science triumphed over the "sick" members of society. 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? [23][24] He is unrelated to another CIA psychiatrist, Alan S. Cameron, who helped pioneer psychological profiling of world leaders during the 1970s and was not associated with the behavioral modification research program. He tried a variety of things, including multiple electroshock therapy sessions a day and massive doses of drugs including LSD. "He was this miracle psychiatrist," she said. Amory: We definitely will. He was always interested in the future. [15], Before his arrival in Nuremberg, Cameron had written The Social Reorganization of Germany, in which he argued that German culture and its individual citizens would have to be transformed and reorganized. Agnes was born in 1844, in Richmond Victoria Australia. Duncan: Yes. 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