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. Duncan Cameron: This is a picture of the whole family. Who hasnt talked about this in a long time. The described types were the enemies of society and life. Cameron began to explore how industrial conditions could satisfy the population through work and what kind of person or worker is best suited to industrial conditions. Amory: What was your father like as a dad? Amory: Just not in the way he might have hoped. Cameron wrote that mental illness was transmitted generationally; thus, the re-occurrence of mental illness could be stopped by remodeling and expanding existing concepts of marriage suitability, as well as the quarantine of mentally ill individuals from the general population. Ewen Cameron made the hike with Duncans younger brother, James. Another patient was suffering from leg pains that no one had been able to diagnose. Do you remember that? Ben: Jims right. Scottish-American psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron led and conducted these experiments. Dr. Ewen Cameron was an undeniably fascinating figure, and as horrible as his experiments were, the way people continued to talk about him was even more telling. Psychiatric experimentation: the lessons or history, The Journal of the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 1994, Vol. And he was always very fascinated by what the future held for us all. Because his dad isnt around to do it himself. He began his career as resident surgeon at Glasgow Infirmary, but in 1929 moved . [33] The son of one of Cameron's patients noted in a memoir that other than Ed Broadbent and Svend Robinson, no Canadian MP brought up the issue in the House of Parliament. [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: Talking about him, it should be easy, but sometimes it's sort of emotional. Stephen: So they created a manual, which basically was for intelligence personnel. Or do you remember any of --. Marian: There was a picture of my mom there and somebody commented, Ugh that's the Johanna that's her name I remember. And my sister looked at him and said, But what was she like? In 2020, director Stephen Bennett released "Eminent Monsters," a film that examined the link between Cameron's work and the torture techniques used by organizations around the world, including the CIA. Canada. Ewen Donald Cameron. He didn't pull punches, saying, "We hanged Nazis for doing the sort of things Cameron did.". For years, the patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron or, more accurately, the families of those patients have been trying to get compensation for the unthinkable experiments their loved ones were subjected to. Just as Sigrid Schultz stated in Germany will try it again, Cameron fostered a fear for Germans and their genetic determination. More about the Cameron family name; Sponsored by Ancestry. He was there when his legal partner, Joseph Rauh, took Camerons deposition. sister. So why havent they? Cameron placed the psychiatric treatment unit inside of the hospital and inspected its success. Skip Ancestry . Ben: As for the CIAs MK-ULTRA program itself, it never had an official end date. Ben: The main takeaway here is Duncan admitting that he did remove documents pertaining to specific patients, before giving his dads papers to the archives. For Cameron, the traits were contagions and anyone affected by the societal, cultural or personality forms would themselves be infected. Cameron began his training in psychiatry at the Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital in 1925. In other words, torture. Think of all the books and the movies that are about mind control. 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." Research genealogy for Donald Ewen Cameron of Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, USA, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. Any documents that related to patient treatment were destroyed? If I put you through this program, within 24 hours to 48 hours you'll be in a diagnosable psychotic state. Cameron believed firmly in clinical psychiatry and a strict scientific method. 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. [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. Donald Cameron of Lochiel (c.1700 - October 1748), was an influential Highland Clan Chief known for his magnanimous and gallant nature. 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. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. He served as president of the American Psychiatric Association , Canadian Psychiatric Association ,[2] American Psychopathological Association . And we would take off. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Alison said that when her mother returned, it was no longer her mother. Heres documentarian Stephen Bennett, whose film Eminent Monsters looks at the real echoes of Camerons work in government interrogation programs today. Hebb submitted his findings to the CIA, and it ended up being just the beginning. If he had a choice he would have kept living forever. Duncan: This is at the Lake Placid Club in Lake Placid, New York. [14] Hess later confessed that he had faked the amnesia. Cameron quickly found patients didn't want to listen to the messages. In 1936, he moved to Massachusetts to become director of the research division at Worcester State Hospital only 1 year later. He wanted to cure schizophrenia, and win a Nobel Prize for it. And he was a fast driver. Abruptly and unexpectedly, Dr. Cameron suffered a life-ending heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967. "[35] She then cites Alfred W. McCoy: "Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Cameron's experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method. Ben: He looks like hes having a good time. Then we brought them down I think it was probably during one of my infrequent jaunts up there I brought them down in my car, and I then took them over and deposited them at the American Psychiatric Association. Cameron stayed there for seven years and was made physician-in-charge of the Reception Unit of the Provincial Mental Hospital. Which suggests it was for purposes of, not closure, but of not wanting information to come to light that was in the papers. Ben: About halfway through, Prosecutor Joseph Rauh starts quoting statements that Camerons wife Duncans mom made on the record. If you haven't heard Parts 1 through 4 yet, you can find them here, here,here,and here. He was a person who was always looking for a way of advancing the field. The insecure man "They are the driven crowds that makes the army of the authoritarian overlord; they are the stuffing of conservatism mediocrity is their god. First I have to say that my father was exceedingly committed to his field. Duncan: Oh yes, he enjoyed a good joke even if they were off color. So we don't have. 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. Amory: He said he did not destroy documents, that he didn't know about that. He warned that government institutions should take measures against such potential liabilities. And you can get a real sense of your own, where you are in the world. 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. Duncan: Well, that's a big subject. 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 encourage you to research and examine these records to . Duncan: They got close to the top and James looked around and my father had passed away. Heres journalist John Marks. Sounds questionable? Allan Cameron. He argued that people with mental illnesses could spread and transmit their diseases. 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. He clearly had his mind set on doing unorthodox research long before the Agency front started to fund him. And one of these risks was the treatment that he was using. And he always had a little book of science fiction by the bedside. He did and he got it. Velma Orlikow, for instance, was dealing with postpartum depression. There's Edgar Allan Poe stories and Sherlock Holmes stories. Please note . He began his career as resident surgeon at Glasgow Infirmary, but in 1929 moved to Canada to work in the Brandon Mental Hospital. And here I am looking much younger than I am now. John Marks: There must have been clinical documents. "[H]e was born in. Genealogy profile for Major Donald of 4th Chief Clunes "Old '45" Cameron Major Cameron . Through his instruction of nurses and psychiatrists he became an authority in his areas of concentration. As soon as his family found out about his death, they burned all the files that this man kept in his possession. He received an M.B., Ch.B. . 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? Cameron believed that mental illness was literally contagious that if one came into contact with someone with mental illness, one would begin to produce the symptoms of a mental disease. 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." Amory: Eventually though, it wasnt just Camerons successor who was calling him out. So we dont have access to Cameron's thoughts on his own legacy. I'm sure that they loved him very much and knew him in a very different way. Experts must develop methods of forcefully changing attitudes and beliefs to prevent the authoritarian overlord. By that time, information on Cameron's sleep room projects was coming out, and there were all kinds of people who were very quick to distance themselves from it. 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. Amory: But Cameron was publishing articles and giving speeches about his work throughout his life. [citation needed]. There must have been records of experiments. We were unable to subscribe you to WBUR Today. Part of Camerons plan for his patients was to wipe their minds clean, to make them forget their past, so they could move forward. 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. Duncan Cameron: No. 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. Cleghorn immediately ended Camerons program. He tried a variety of things, including multiple electroshock therapy sessions a day and massive doses of drugs including LSD. This must be very difficult, very complicated for them. 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. That was just something we wanted to get clarification on. . Ironically, his lasting impact would be on how to destroy the human mind, not how to repair it. You can try, The 1963 "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual, "CIA's Secret Brainwashing Experiment" (1984), "Brainwashed: The Secret CIA Experiments in Canada" (2017), Jim Turner and Joseph Rauh's lawsuit debrief: "Anatomy Of A Public Interest Case Against The CIA,", Send us a direct message on Reddit. The Canadian government also funded the project. There are a few ways to reach us: This content was originally created for audio. Duncan: I started work at the State Department just a day or so before Kennedy was assassinated. Despite the horrific abuse, the American and Canadian psychiatric establishment closed ranks. Cameron never got his Nobel Prize in fact, he died not long after leaving Allan Memorial Institute. He came up with the idea that if he presented the world and confronted the Germans with the atrocities committed during the war, the world and the Germans would refrain from repeated acts of extreme aggression. ", 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 was this miracle psychiatrist," she said. He continued his training in the United States under Meyer at the Phipps Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland from 1926 to 1928 with a Henderson Research Scholarship. All Germans on trial would be assessed according to the likeliness for committing the crime. Duncan: You see, he doesn't have a scowl. Results were telling: They became super sensitive to the sensory stimuli they did receive, and then, things started getting really weird. It is a rare thing that a psychiatrist of his worldwide reputation and capacity should be a resource available to a small mountain community. They were destroyed. Donald Ewen Cameron was born in Bridge of Allen, a small town in Scotland, on December 24, 1901. He promoted a philosophy where chaos could be prevented by removing the weak from society. Amory: Sarah Anne Johnson, whose grandmother Val Orlikow was a patient of Ewen Camerons, has a response to Duncan that, considering what her family has been through as a result of his fathers experimentation, is surprising. Ex-husband of Enid Agnes Maud Watson. We encourage you to research and examine these records . Duncan: I mean, it's very different than the caricature that you sometimes read in the press. Amory: Nearly everyone who experienced Camerons treatments first-hand has since died. Tell us about your reaction to this episode or send us a story idea. And it's still hugely controversial: In 2019, The New York Times published drawings done by prisoners who had been subjected to these torture methods at Guantanamo Bay, and it's not for the faint of heart. I then *went through* the papers, because I felt that it would be improper to leave in the papers any paper that identified patients. 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. He never got one. And then she came back from Montreal and she was never the same. Ewen Cameron experimented on people right up until he left the Allan in 1964. Even as he wrote about Cameron's "warmth [which was] never allowed to appear as intimacy," he wrote about a pretty big blind spot: Cameron had apparently hired a few assistants with "psychopathic personalities.". 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. Ben: But some key documentation of Camerons time at the Allan is straight up missing. Amory: Hey, Dad, let's get out of here!, Duncan: I can remember doing that several times. 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. Duncan: He probably did, but I dont think I could remember the specifics of it. And, later on to guidebooks for what we now call enhanced interrogation at places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. And he didn't achieve that either. Ben: But there is reason to believe that these documents arent just missing. He recruited psychoanalysts, social psychiatrists and biologists globally to develop the psychiatry program at McGill[12] From its beginning in 1943, the Allan Memorial Institute was run on an "open door" basis, allowing patients to leave if they wished, as opposed to the "closed door" policy of other hospitals in Canada in the early 1940s. Cameron's work was funded under MKUltra's subproject 68. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all senior partners in the company. 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. Ian Donald Cameron is geboren in het jaar 1932 in Blairmore House, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, zoon van Ewen Donald CAMERON en Enid Agnes Maud LEVITA. Alison believes those random phrases her mother would sometimes say were from the recordings that she'd been forced to listen to for hours. Finally, while the person is in isolated confinement, in LSD altered states of consciousness, and deprived of sensory stimulation, adequate food, water, and oxygen, the subject would be bombarded by psychic driving by use of a football helmet clamped to the head with taped messages played for hours non-stop up to a half-million times, messages such as my mother hates me. (McCoy, 2007). According to what his son, Duncan, told WBUR, it was 1967 when he decided to climb Street Mountain in the Adirondacks. memorial page for Donald Ewen Cameron (1852-5 Feb 1892), Find a Grave Memorial ID 170055188, citing Cameron Cemetery, Indian River . 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. That's absolutely the stuff of a terrifying Netflix horror series, but it was very real and it destroyed an unknown number of lives. Region. We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the Cameron family. [25], Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by "erasing" existing memories and "reprogramming" the psyche. Donald Ewen Cameron 24 December 1901 - 8 September 1967)[1] was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. The goal, says CBC, was to reduce the patient to what was called a "childlike state," with some people destroyed so completely that they could no longer walk, talk, or dress themselves Shoelaces? Operating under the umbrella of MKUltra were as many as 162 sub-projects, with as many as 80 different organizations involved in research. Ben: But the Canadian and US governments could take accountability for their support of Cameron. In 1929 he moved to Canada where he worked in the Brandon Mental Hospital in Manitoba as the physician in charge. Not, at least, until well into 1965, months after they were told to end the experiments. The work of Dr. Ewen Cameron may have been discredited by mainstream psychiatry, but that doesn't mean it went away completely. . And in that sense, I think his ambition overrode his skills and his ability to do the research. This personality type poses a danger to those closest to them, especially children. According to The Guardian, it started with playing tapes designed to tap into the reason the patient sought help in the first place. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the CIA. He died of a heart attack while climbing a mountain in the Adirondacks in 1967. [5], Cameron was involved in administering electroconvulsive therapy and experimental drugs, including poisons such as curare and hallucinogens such as lysergic acid diethylamide, to patients and prisoners without their knowledge or informed consent. Memories are not the most reliable form of evidence. Amory: Duncan has a very different picture of his father, a whole bunch of them actually. Cameron's work stopped when she gave birth, and Lloyd remembered a broken mother. [citation needed][21]. Amory: They bounced around between foster homes and orphanages for years, experienced emotional and physical abuse. In 1928, Cameron left Baltimore for the Burghlzli, the psychiatric hospital of the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, where he studied under Hans W. Maier, the successor of Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who had significantly influenced psychiatric thinking. And you see this actual physical manual on how to break down the human mind. Photo by Courtesy of Julie Tanny For the first four years of Julie Tanny's. And how his work lives on. 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. We put this to Harvey Weinstein, the psychiatrist we heard from earlier, whose father was a patient at the Allan. Duncan: Well, I think that I would feel sad about that. Amory: Dr. Ewen Cameron will never be able to respond to the intergenerational trauma created by his work. [clarification needed] Those Germans affected by the events that led to World War II were of utmost concern. Their diagnosis was amnesia and hysteria, per a short commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Duncan: Well, I didnt destroy the documents. It was reported that none of the patients sent to the Radio Telemetry Lab showed any signs of improvement. Amory: You're welcome to pull it out now. Amory: Author Stephen Kinzer, who wrote the book about the CIA and Mind Control, says, after Vietnam, this same literature got used elsewhere. Were they *destroyed* or did you just take the patients name out? 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. Cameron Cemetery. 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. In Cameron, the CIA had a psychiatrist, conveniently outside the United States, who was willing to do terminal experiments in electroshock, sensory deprivation, drug testing, and all of the above combined. 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. Research genealogy for donald ewen Cameron of Melbourne, Victoria, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. with distinction from the University of Glasgow in 1936.[8]. They fear the stranger, they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die." Canada's McGill University has owned up to the part it played in MKUltra's Sub-project 68, and they say that it really started before Dr. Ewen Cameron even got involved. 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. And I think it affected a lot more people than anybody even realizes today. 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. Heres part of Duncans transcript: Duncan (from the transcript): I recall contacting the American Psychiatric Association and asking them if they would have an interest in holding his papers in their archives, and they expressed an interest in doing it. And people talk about the transmission of trauma through generations. Camerons techniques have no therapeutic validity whatsoever; they were comparable to Nazi medical atrocities. Most of the patient files are gone, and according to WBUR, they weren't just misplaced, they were destroyed. with distinction from the University of Glasgow in 1936. 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. (McCoy, 2007), According to Leonard Rubenstein, an attorney for plaintiffs [Mrs. David Orlikow et al. 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." As for the ongoing lawsuits, some of the plaintiffs have actually contacted Duncan wondering if hed be willing to support their efforts. Dr. Ewen Cameron wanted to win a Nobel Prize for his work in psychiatry. A Canadian government dismissed the CIAs role as a side issue or red herring; Ottawas Justice Department denied legal responsibility, offering each victim a nugatory $20,000 nuisance payment. 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." In 1943, Cameron was invited to McGill University in Montreal by neurosurgeon Dr Wilder Penfield. [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. "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. Kinzer: Later on, it became the basis for manuals that the CIA provided in the 1980s to police forces in Latin America that were known to practice torture. Alison Steel won compensation for her mother's misery in 2017, says the CBC: $100,000 in exchange for ending legal action. Amory: And, they delivered, with a full transcript of Duncans deposition from November, 1983. His response? And here he is with me many years ago. 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. So what led the CIA to get onto this fantasy? Duncan: He loved hiking. Duncan: And I've said Im unable to do that. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu. [citation needed] Characteristics were thus diagnosed as syndromes emerging from the brain. Rauh: So any documents that would show the treatment of the plaintiffs in this case were destroyed? The second part of the technique was inspired by something called the Cerebrophone, which was essentially a "learn-while-you-sleep" recording device. Her family sued, first based on the treatment alone, then again, after discovering she was a part of the MKUltra program. His brutal techniques involved a three-stage method for brainwashing in order to eliminate the will and establish control: first, mental depatterning achieved through drug-induced coma; massive neuroleptic drug cocktails induced extended sleep lasting up to eighty-six days. Ben: Sure, but I mean, in terms of trying to help cure people of mental illness or anything like that, not necessarily his process, but his end goal. So I think the complaints of the doctors and nurses had reached their ears. . 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." And Camerons part of that. The mentally ill were thus labelled as not only sick, but also weak. Cameron was born on December 24, 1901, in Scotland and graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1924. 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.