Main Paineframe posted:

Well, MKULTRA is a pretty good example of why I'm worried about dismissing conspiracy theories out of hand: there was no evidence or primary sources on MKULTRA until it was revealed by the government. In 1973, claiming that the government was giving people LSD and other drugs as part of mind control experiments would have been insane crazyland conspiracy theory stuff...despite the fact that, at the time, MKULTRA was being brought to a close after twenty years of experiments and the CIA was busily destroying all records of its existence. The only reason we know about it at all is was because some of the records had been misfiled and thus survived the attempt to shred everything; thanks to the fact that most of the evidence was destroyed, though, it's hard to confidently say "so and so never happened in MKULTRA". It's a goldmine for ridiculous conspiracy theories, yes, but it's kind of hard to blame the conspiracy theorists - given the deliberate destruction of evidence and the highly illegal nature of the experiments, it's a goldmine for crazy anti-government speculation.