The Marquis & MK-ULTRA

 

The Marquis & MK-ULTRA



'The 120 Days of Sodom' & its Analogues to CIA Mind Control Allegations


ā€œThe extensive wars that Louis XIV had to wage throughout the course of his reign, while exhausting the stateā€™s finances and the peopleā€™s resources, nevertheless uncovered the secret to enriching an enormous number of those leeches always lying in wait for the public calamities they provoke rather than quell in order to profit from them all the more.ā€1


So begins an unfinished manuscript by Donatien Alphonse FranƧois de Sade, written while he was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1785. More commonly known by his noble title, the Marquis de Sade scribbled The 120 Days of Sodom on a makeshift scroll for several weeks before being transferred to a mental asylum. The text was eventually published in 1904, almost a century after Sadeā€™s death. His manuscript still provokes debate regarding its literary merit (or lack thereof). Its first sentence above is one of Sadeā€™s rare hints of some sort of political commentary throughout this repulsive fable of torture, rape and pedophilia.


The story involves four elite Frenchmen plotting to kidnap twenty children, thereafter subjecting them to excruciating abuse over one hundred and twenty days in a Swiss castle. The whole thing seems to be a devilish experiment for the quartet to push their sexual boundaries to grotesque frontiers. Their abuses are planned and perpetrated in a rigid, repetitive and formulaic structure. Each day starts the same way, with group assaults against victim Y, then breakfast, followed by a beating of victim X, then coffee, and so on.


The violence is interspersed with eloquent narratives by elderly prostitutes reminiscing about their affluent clients. Theyā€™re hired to verbally inflame the aristocratsā€™ imaginations during each day of debauchery, joining their crack team of guards, servants and enablers in a well-funded scheme, its finances ā€œallocated for nothing but expenses in the interests of pleasureā€.2


Thatā€™s basically the entire plot. One would be forgiven for thinking itā€™s simply the deranged fantasy of a ā€œsex pervert anti-natalistā€, as one podcaster put it.3 Professor Laurence Bongie evidently agreed, referring to the novel as ā€œan unending mire of permuted depravitiesā€.4 So why is it a Penguin Classic? And why did the likes of Samuel Beckett call it ā€œone of the capital works of the 18th centuryā€?5



Perhaps one hint can be found in the bookā€™s parallels with real-life atrocities. The Penguin editionā€™s translators say the narrativeā€™s violence and objectification ā€œbrings to mind the systematic depersonalization of prisoners in concentration camps during the Second World Warā€.6 Philosophers Horkheimer and Adorno likewise compare ā€œthe strict regime of the libertine societyā€ inside The 120 Daysā€™ castle with totalitarian societies. Sadeā€™s text is argued to be a macro-version of these societies, their ā€œrelentless organizationā€ systematically dehumanizing citizens until they ā€œbecome mere materialā€ for their rulers.7


Filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini took this comparison further, setting his adaptation of The 120 Days during Hitler and Mussoliniā€™s waning Axis coalition. The film was set in Marzabotto, a town near Bologna where at least 770 civilians were massacred by the Nazis in 1944. Decades later, scholars like Alessia Ricciardi suggested that Pasoliniā€™s adaptation was ā€œa critique of contemporary political conditionsā€ foreshadowing the 2004 Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.8


Above: A French poster for the 1975 film adaptation of Sadeā€™s novel.


Over in Bangkok, English musician Peter Christopherson shot a music video for his bandā€™s song ā€˜Ostiaā€™ in 2008. The video juxtaposed Sade and Pasoliniā€™s depictions of calculated, procedural violence with the Khmer Rougeā€™s infamous Tuol Sling Interrogation Camp. It was a fitting comparison; like the 120 Daysā€™ systematic brutality, the Communist Party of Kampuchea methodically used ā€œelectric shocks, beatings and water poured in the nose to extract elaborate written confessions to real and imagined offenses.ā€9


All this is to say that despite being a pornographic fever dream written by a convicted rapist, The 120 Days of Sodom at least offers some insights into historyā€™s perpetuation of cruelty. It also provides insights into historical instances where extreme abuse has been perpetrated methodically and quasi-scientifically. Which brings me to the focus of todayā€™s article.


Just as Sadeā€™s manuscript has been compared to historical horrors, this piece will compare his text to descriptions of mind control experiments carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Cold WarBy using Sadeā€™s novel as a point of comparison, we can perhaps gain a clearer understanding of why some writers regard the text as relevant to modern times. Whatā€™s more, we can delve into the intriguing correlations between accounts of mind control which remain unproven, in the hope of one day ascertaining their veracity. But letā€™s start with the proven examples first.


The CIAā€™s Cold War mind control programs are often grouped colloquially under the term ā€˜MK-ULTRAā€™, itself a codename for only one such program. Their existence emerged in the 1970s, with Congressional committees and news reports outlining illegal CIA domestic activities during the 1950s and ā€˜60s. These included medical experiments on U.S. citizens by use of sleep deprivation, isolation, starvation, electroconvulsive therapy and a deluge of hallucinogenic drugs like LSD.10


A well-known MK-ULTRA figure is the late Dr. Ewen Cameron. Funded by the CIA while working across the Canadian border, Cameron tried to dismantle patientsā€™ personalities before rebuilding them using several of the above methods. One woman admitted to McGill Universityā€™s Allan Memorial Institute for depression was injected with LSD fourteen times without her knowledge. She was also forced to endure ā€œpsychic drivingā€ sessions, listening to tape-recorded speech at sixteen-hour intervals. Beforehand, Cameron had broken her down into a vegetable state using sensory isolation, electroshock and drugs.11


Above: Dr. Ewen Cameron (1901-1967)


It was a repetitive, highly procedural torture applied to scores of patients. Mirroring The 120 Days of Sodomā€™s journaled horrors, Cameron also conducted a procedure where patients were overheated in an electric cage.12 In Sadeā€™s novel, one prostituteā€™s tale concerns a nobleman from the illustrious MĆ©sange family, who enjoyed children being dangled in front of him ā€œover a large charcoal brazierā€ which slowly roasted them alive.13


Indeed, several of the novelā€™s stories echo Cameronā€™s procedures. Sade occasionally describes sex workers being tortured with mechanical contraptions, such as a woman who is ā€œlodged in a pneumatic machineā€ where she is ā€œdeprived of air, then given air, then ā€˜tis is taken away againā€.14 Eighteenth century precursors to Cameronā€™s excruciating methods, perhaps, albeit non-electrified.


Above: An electroshock therapy apparatus from Ewen Cameronā€™s era.


Cameron was no aberration in the intelligence communityā€™s pursuit of behaviour modification. Declassified CIA documents describe similar experiments in American institutions like Louisianaā€™s Tulane University and Michiganā€™s Ionia State Hospital. At least one of the Michigan ā€œsubjectsā€, an alleged child molester, was ignorant of these proceduresā€™ true nature. He volunteered to undergo a ā€œbeneficialā€ experiment, without much elaboration, and was subsequently dosed with enormous quantities of LSD and questioned under hypnosis.15


The CIA chose several convicted pedophiles at Ionia for these activities. The agencyā€™s scientists reasoned they might try to conceal their horrific crimes like how ā€œa captured agent might try to conceal his contactsā€ while interrogated.16 Similarly, in Sadeā€™s 120 Days, the four aristocrats select attendants to aid their sexual forays based on sheer villainy. The female helpers in particular are only chosen if they are, for example, ā€œas wicked as the devil and forever ready to commit any horror and every extravagance one could possibly demandā€.17 One agency-funded Tulane psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Heath, was fond of similar excesses. He received CIA money in 1955 to administer ā€œLSD, Mescaline, and other drugs to mental patients who theretofore had electrodes implanted in their brainsā€.18


In an era where homosexuality was often branded a malady, Heath tried to turn gay men into heterosexuals. He arranged sexual dalliances for a gay man with a female prostitute in a laboratory, monitoring his brainwaves with implanted electrodes. Intermittently, the patientā€™s cranium was ā€œstimulatedā€ with electric transmitters either by himself or by Heathā€™s team from an observation area.19 Likewise, one ā€œoperationā€ described in Sadeā€™s novel involves a mechanical ā€œapparatusā€ which ā€œhad been built expresslyā€ for a wealthy patron to observe his naked playthings.20 While the Tulane subject was witting in his treatment, prostitution was also employed in MK-ULTRA with unwitting subjects.


For example, in 1950s San Francisco, sex workers were paid by the CIA to surreptitiously dose clientsā€™ drinks with LSD. Meanwhile, agency operatives recorded the johnsā€™ reactions behind two-way mirrors.21 Again, there are shades of The 120 Days here; the aging storyteller in the novelā€™s first act recounts spying on sexual liaisons from behind ā€œa hole in the partitionā€ in a Parisian bordello.22 The novelā€™s aristocrats study and discuss the behaviour she witnessed in a rather scientific fashion, dissecting her clientsā€™ ā€œcurious maniasā€ with intellectual rigor. ā€œThatā€™s an odd and pleasant mania,ā€ one debauchee comments, ā€œthe major part of it can be extracted for use in other connectionsā€.23


Children are singled out as victims in Sadeā€™s novel, and MK-ULTRA experimentation did indeed occur on children, but itā€™s unclear to what extent. The vast majority of the programmesā€™ files were destroyed under CIA Director Richard Helms in 1973,24 the same year the agency implies their mind control operations ceased.25 Activities like Cameronā€™s were revealed primarily due to patientsā€™ testimony and journaled accounts. A small smattering of files were revealed to the public in 1977 because of a filing error within the CIA.26


This was followed by a Freedom of Information Request years later by psychologist and author Dr. Colin Ross. One CIA document responsive to Rossā€™ request was an approved 1961 proposal to induce dissociative states in ā€œpsychotics, children and mediumsā€, among other groups.27 The methods were particularly disturbing, ranging from drugs, hypnosis and ā€œpsychological tricksā€ to ensure subjectsā€™ cooperation.28 Ross obtained four other reports summarizing separate experiments on children, but these were relatively benign and centred on activities like behavioural observation and ā€œsocial processes in teenage gangsā€.29


Above: A document showing MK-ULTRA Subproject 136ā€™s approval. This
subproject aimed to induce dissociative states in children & other people.


The nature of the ā€œpsychological tricksā€ used on Subproject 136ā€™s child subjects is anyoneā€™s guess. But one can surmise parallels with The 120 Days of Sodomā€™s bizarre manias. In one of the womenā€™s stories, a ten year-old prostitute is fooled into thinking she has been caught stealing from a tax collector and will be hanged. The girlā€™s terror leaves her ā€œhardly able to speakā€, arousing the maniacal tax collector as he fantasizes about her violent execution.30 She is then ā€œarrestedā€ by an officer who is actually her clientā€™s valet, himself in on the stunt, and told that the whole thing is a ruse; ā€œItā€™s all over,ā€ he chuckles to her, ā€œand here is your money.ā€31


Another psychological hoodwink occurs when a youngster is instructed to meet a nobleman in his mansion. Immediately upon seeing the girl, the gentleman tears off her clothes and ā€œthrows them one after another into the fireā€, repeating invectives like ā€œBy sweet Jesus, Iā€™m going to burn you alive!ā€ Believing in his act, the girl is ā€œpetrifiedā€, making her client ā€œhalf-unconsciousā€ with pleasure. Afterwards, he rings a bell and the child is escorted outside by a butler, presented with ā€œclothes twice as fine as those he incineratedā€, and returned to the brothel where she lives.32


Several people have claimed they were experimented upon by the CIA long after the agency says these activities stopped. Itā€™s here that we find the murkier, less well-documented claims of CIA mind control. Unlike the Cameron, Heath and Ionia experiments, these programsā€™ existence remains a mystery. However, with such a huge vacuum in knowledge, itā€™s at least worth considering these individualsā€™ testimony. The key is being aware that future investigation may one day validate or refute their stories. With that in mind, letā€™s move on.


Speaking before a 1995 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Louisiana native Claudia Mullen related experiences highly reminiscent of Sadeā€™s 18th century manuscript. She recounted being left with ā€œbruises, needle marks and burnsā€ by procedures under Doctors Heath and Cameron when she was a child.33 There are even stronger Sadeian parallels in Mullenā€™s claim that, as part of her abuse, she was brought to government officials and academics to be raped in covertly-videotaped orgies. She said this was so CIA bigwigs like Richard Helms and Dr. Sidney Gottlieb could reel in ā€œmore funding for radiation and mind control projectsā€ by blackmailing her abusers with the recordings.34


Above: Claudia Mullen (first on the left) testifies in 1995 before the
Presidentā€™s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.


Claudia Mullenā€™s therapist told the committee that some of her patientā€™s programming occurred at Tulane University in New Orleans.35 Aside from being Dr. Robert Heathā€™s haunting ground, author Judyth Baker wrote that Tulane had ties to David Ferrie. Ferrie was an alleged CIA asset who molested local New Orleans teenagers ā€œand sometimes hypnotized themā€.36 According to Baker, Ferrie worked alongside Dr. Heath in his electrode experiments.37 Claudia Mullen said she was experimented upon from 1957 to 1974, but itā€™s unknown whether she crossed paths with Ferrie. Itā€™s also never been verified that Ferrie worked with Dr. Heath, or with any other MK-ULTRA scientists for that matter.


In any case, Mullen said she was constantly taught ā€œhow to please men sexuallyā€ as part of her programming.38 This brings to mind The 120 Days of Sodomā€™s subtitle, The School of Libertinage. ā€œLibertinageā€ is associated with 18th century French ā€œlibertineā€ literature, ā€œcharacterized by its focus on fleshly desires and pleasuresā€.39 Via their own suffering and the elderly prostitutesā€™ narrations, Sadeā€™s captive children are schooled in how particularly depraved libertines are expected to behave sexually.


In Sadeā€™s novel, the childrenā€™s conduct is rigorously examined according to their captorsā€™ ā€œstatutesā€. As an example, ā€œall present shall be nakedā€ every evening, while ā€œeveryone will be sprawled on the floor and, after the example of animals, shall change, shall commingle, entwine, couple incestuouslyā€.40 The juveniles also regularly attend ā€œmasturbation lessonsā€,41 and their names are routinely ā€œinscribed on the list of punishmentsā€ if they disobey even the slightest rule.42


Above: A 2024 Greek stage adaptation of ā€˜The 120 Days of Sodomā€™.


Two years before Claudia Mullenā€™s testimony, Paul Bonacci recounted similar CIA ā€œschoolingā€. In a 1993 deposition for his lawsuit, Bonacci claimed he was abused in a mind control program from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. A local of the Omaha, Nebraska area, the teenage Bonacci was allegedly brought to Offutt Air Force Base in the south of the city to be drugged and brainwashed by psychiatrists and military officers.43 The headquarters of STRATCOM, Americaā€™s key nuclear deterrence system, Offutt Air Force Base is where at least four people believe they were experimented upon during the ā€˜70s and ā€˜80s.44


Bonacci claimed the specific CIA project he was abused in was called ā€œMonarchā€. He said its personnel included a Lieutenant Colonel previously investigated for child molestation,45 a Chief Master Sergeant, and an Omaha businessman later ordered to pay $1,000,000 in damages to Bonacci in a default judgment.46 By his own admission, this same businessman handled ā€œtop-secret informationā€ for the Air Force during the Vietnam War, having been stationed in Thailand as an ā€œinformation specialistā€.47 He was jailed for embezzlement in the 1990s,48 and his personal photographer said he was in cahoots with the Lieutenant Colonel.49


Bonacci said a prime goal of ā€œMonarchā€ was to induce youths with multiple personalities. This echoes MK-ULTRA subproject 136, intended to create mental personae which could be ā€œinduced and controlledā€ with ā€œdrugs and hypnosisā€.50 Foreshadowing Claudia Mullenā€™s testimony, Bonacci said his programmers ā€œhave a lot of schools where they train girls to be prostitutes, and boys like [himself]ā€.51 He also said he was intermittently ordered to have sex with Congressmen so his handlers could blackmail them.


Above: Paul Bonacci being sworn in for his 1993 deposition.

Bonacci claimed he was ushered into the project by ā€œan airman from Offutt Air Force Baseā€ assigned to ā€œrecruit kids from the local neighborhoodā€.52 In court, he said he was forced to help kidnap a schoolboy across state borders in West Des Moines, Iowa.53 In The 120 Days of Sodom, similar procedures are carried out in Parisian neighborhoods and across the provinces to obtain children; ā€œSixteen intelligent procuresses, each accompanied by two lieutenants, were sent into the sixteen major provinces of France, while a seventeenth was occupied with the same work in Paris only.ā€54 Mirroring the espionage aspects of Bonacciā€™s allegations, ā€œspies were posted to survey these womenā€™s proceedingsā€ and to inform the four masterminds ā€œwith exhaustive and prompt reports of what they were doing.ā€55


Similar claims to Bonacciā€™s and Mullenā€™s were published in a 1995 memoir by Cathy Oā€™Brien. She wrote that she was taken to a ā€œCharm Schoolā€ in Youngstown, Ohio during the 1980s, where children were hypnotized and trained in prostitution as part of ā€œthe Monarch Projectā€.56 At the Charm School, she was allegedly tortured in an underground ā€œwine cellar dungeonā€ adjacent to cells holding ā€œdogs, cats, snakesā€ and ceremonial alters, ā€œincluding one specially designed for bestialityā€.57 Likewise, in The 120 Days of Sodomā€™s ā€œschool of libertinageā€, children are thrown into dungeons ā€œsurrounded by cats, rats and miceā€ for the libertinesā€™ pleasure.58 Several narrations also describe prostitutes being forced to have sex with horses and bulls, deemed an ā€œentertaining spectacleā€ by their clients.59


Above: Cathy Oā€™Brien giving a speech about her recollections of mind control.


Theatrics and fantasy permeate The 120 Days of Sodom, as they did in the Monarch allegations centuries later. In Sadeā€™s novel, the quartetā€™s statutes dictate that several aides will dress up as ā€œnuns, fairies, sorceresses and, upon occasion, widowsā€ during storytelling sessions.60 Similarly, Bonacci described being taken with other children to Colorado tunnels where they were forced into mock alien abductions on supposed spaceships. These ā€œwere not real spaceships, nor were they real aliensā€, Bonacci told lawyers. ā€œWe were simply induced with drugs so that we would not render realityā€¦If we ever related this information, then it would come out and appear as if we were crazy.ā€61


In December 1993, journalist Anton Chaitkin reported that other Monarch victims described ā€œtormenters dressed as space aliensā€, ā€œMickey Mouseā€ or donning ā€œWizard of Oz costumesā€.62 Similar Sadeian theatrics are described by Idaho native J.R. Sweet. He recalls his ā€œCIA handlerā€ being dressed as the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carrollā€™s Alice in Wonderland. Similar to Bonacciā€™s testimony, Sweet relates a 1993 incident where his handler triggered him into a ā€œa dissociative stateā€ to adopt a ā€œsexual personalityā€.63 He was then allegedly forced into sex acts with people wearing NASA garments atop a surgical table, and later with another child dressed as Alice from Carrollā€™s Victorian fairytale.


Above: J.R. Sweet in 1997, aged nineteen.


Sweet remembers other darkly performative flourishes, such as being ā€œtestedā€ for the Monarch program by a ventriloquist. Sweet describes this fellow writing down the boyā€™s name ā€œfor the recordsā€ before swinging open a box. Inside, ā€œon silken linen was a human hand cut off at the wristā€, causing the petrified eight-year-old to silently regress into a dissociative state. His examiner ā€œhad a questioning but pleased look about himā€ because, Sweet says, he was one of the few who dissociated.64 Similarly, in The 120 Days of Sodom, at least one child dissociates from the abuse by the bookā€™s end. Captives becoming numbed to violence are rewarded with ā€œa green ribbonā€, signifying they will be taken home from Switzerland alive.65


Bonacci, Sweet and Oā€™Brien all recall being abused in Satanic rituals. Oā€™Brien remembers the aforementioned Lieutenant Colonel using ā€œoccultismā€ as a ā€œtrauma baseā€ to program her mind.66 Likewise, The 120 Days of Sodom takes on overtly Satanic overtones in its later passages, culminating in what Sade calls ā€œThe Passion of Hellā€. This is an elaborate narration by the final storyteller, who recalls several children being tortured by fifteen men, each one ā€œwearing the mask and emblem of a demonā€.67


Similar to the Youngstown ā€œCharm Schoolā€ described by Oā€™Brien, Sadeā€™s ceremony takes place in ā€œa house on the outskirts of Parisā€ owned by ā€œa very powerful lordā€ prepared specifically ā€œfor no purpose other than the gratification of this passionā€.68 Oā€™Brien said the Charm School was likewise operated by someone from a distinguished Pittsburgh banking family.69 In preparation for The 120 Daysā€™ Hell Passion, children are procured and stored in a nunsā€™ convent, over which the aforementioned lord ā€œhas absolute controlā€, before fifteen are selected for the Dantean ā€œoperationā€.70 The youths are initially ā€œbranded each upon the shoulderā€,71 and Bonacci described some Monarch subjects being branded upon their legs.72


As with the convent used in preparation for this hellish mania, Bonacciā€™s lawyer and Cathy Oā€™Brien said that several Monarch victims were funnelled from a Catholic orphanage in Omaha. Oā€™Brien was allegedly told by her CIA handler that this institution had been ā€œinfiltrated at the topā€ for this purpose.73 In 1978, California radio host Mae Brussell said this specific orphanage had previously been ā€œidentified with intelligence operationsā€.74 However, Iā€™m not aware of Brussell providing any proof of this.


Had Oā€™Brien and Bonacci been misled into repeating Brussellā€™s claim decades later? Or is there a kernel of truth here? After a counsellor at the same orphanage was arrested for child molestation in 1996, court records revealed he had boasted about his involvement in ā€œvarious subversive activities, including spying and the CIAā€.75 He had counselled the brother of Frederick Paine, a resident later jailed for murder.76 Years before this was revealed, Bonacciā€™s lawyer asserted that Frederick Paine was one of the youths brought to Offutt Air Force Base for brainwashing sessions.77 At the very least, it was an odd coincidence.


Above: An underground conference room in Offutt Air Force Base during the 1980s.


Five years after Claudia Mullenā€™s testimony, her therapistā€™s license was revoked by the Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners. They wrote that the clinician had become ā€œover-involvedā€ with another patient allegedly in the throes of mind control. According to them, ā€œwhile her intent to help [the patient] seems to be genuine, the Board finds that [the therapist] lost her way in this case, largely because she was driven to justify and confirm her belief system about mind controlā€.78


Among other things, the Board ruled that the psychotherapist behaved in a ā€œgrossly negligentā€ manner and ā€œexploitedā€ her relationship with the troubled woman ā€œfor personal gainā€.79 A Santa Clara law professor who supported Claudia Mullenā€™s testimony went quiet about the story.80 The therapist herself died of cancer at the age of fifty-four, less than two years after her license was revoked.81


While working through repressed memories of what he believes were traumatic experiments, J.R. Sweet filed Freedom of Information requests to the CIA for records about himself. The CIA stated no records of any ā€œpublicly acknowledgedā€ affiliation between him and the agency were located.82 Cathy Oā€™Brien remains a controversial figure, though one of her particularly gruesome accounts of abuse was verified by doctors in 2001.83


As for Paul Bonacci, heā€™s now living a quiet and peaceful life with his wife and children. In the Summer of 2024, I interviewed Bonacci for an upcoming documentary with a working title of The Omaha Tapes. This project will tell the story of a joint Yorkshire Television and Discovery Channel production from the 1990s. The Yorkshire crew travelled to Omaha to interview Bonacci and others about their accounts of abuse, before their production was abruptly cancelled by the Discovery Channel.84 Bonacci was very gracious with his time, and I greatly appreciate his participation.


On a final (and tragic) note, a direct descendant of the Marquis de Sade, named Xavier de Sade, was subjected to medical experiments in a Nazi labor camp during World War II.85 Thankfully, he survived, and years later he gave the Surrealist writer Gilbert Lely access to a trove of his great-great-great-grandfatherā€™s works. Author Joel Warner observed that ā€œas Sade emerged from the artistic and literary fringes, scholars and intellectuals found him ripe for analysis.ā€86


Therefore, I hope this article has provided a decent analysis not only of Sadeā€™s dark relevance, but also of the enduring mysteries surrounding the CIAā€™s mind control experiments.


Above: The original manuscript of the Marquis de Sadeā€™s ā€˜120 Days of Sodomā€™.
It is currently owned by the French government.

1

Marquis de Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage. 1785. Translated by Will McMorran & Thomas Wynn. Penguin, 2016, p. 1.

2

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings. Translated by Austryn Wainhouse & Richard Seaver. Arrow Books, 1990, p. 194.

3

Book Club From Hell podcast, #41, ā€˜The 120 Days of Sodomā€™. 10th April 2023.
https://open.spotify.com/show/44SNoVLg6Tu9WuGqMIQWf7

4

Laurence L. Bongie. Sade: A Biographical Essay. University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 260.

5

Samuel Beckett. The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1921-1940. Edited by Martha Dow Fehsenfeld & Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 604.

6

Will McMorran & Thomas Wynn. Notes for The 120 Days of Sodom, Marquis de Sade. Penguin, 2016, p. 401.

7

Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford University Press, 2002 (originally published 1947), pp. 67-69.

8

Alessia Ricciardi. ā€˜Rethinking SalĆ² After Abu Ghraibā€™. Postmodern Culture: Journal of Interdisciplinary Thought on Contemporary Cultures, June 17th 2023.
https://www.pomoculture.org/2013/06/17/rethinking-salo-after-abu-ghraib/

9

ā€˜S-21, Tuol Slengā€™, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/cambodia/s-21

10

ā€˜CIA Mind Probes Now More Benignā€™. The New York Times, August 7th 1977.
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/07/archives/cia-mind-probes-now-more-benign.html

12

Colin A. Ross. The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists. Mandell Publishing, 2016, p. 129.

13

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 644.

14

Ibid., p. 611.

15

ā€˜Patients Stood In for Spies in Testsā€™. Detroit Free Press, August 28th 1977.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP88-01315R000400460007-4.pdf

16

Ibid.

17

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 234.

18

Testimony of Charles D. Abelard, General Counsel, Department of the Army, before the United States Senate, 1975. Biomedical and Behavioral Researchā€¦First Session on Human-Use Experimentation Programs of the Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency, p. 156.

19

Robert G. Heath & Charles E. Moan. ā€˜Septal stimulation for the initiation of heterosexual activity in a homosexual maleā€™. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Vol. 3, 1972, pp. 23-30.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0005791672900298

20

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 377.

21

ā€˜Mind-bending disclosures: The agencyā€™s search for the secret of brainwashingā€™. Time Magazine, 15th August 1977, p. 9.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP99-00498R000100110020-9.pdf

22

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 374.

23

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 557.

24

ā€˜Project MK-ULTRA, the CIAā€™s Secret Program of Research in Behavioural Modificationā€™. Joint Hearing Before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources. United States Senate, August 3rd 1977, p. 3.
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf

25

ā€˜The Thomas Crooks Conspiracy Theories Arenā€™t Going Anywhereā€™. WIRED, July 24th 2024.
https://www.wired.com/story/thomas-crooks-conspiracy-donald-trump-cia-mk-ultra/

26

ā€˜Project MK-ULTRAā€™. CIA Freedom of Information Electronic Reading Room.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/06760269

27

MK-ULTRA Subproject 136 proposal, 30th May 1961 (ā€˜Experimental Analysis of Extrasensory Perceptionā€™), p. 5.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/MKULTRA%20%20SUBPROJECT%20136%20%20%5B8144493%5D.pdf

28

Ibid., p. 6.

29

Ross. The CIA Doctors, p. 65.

30

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 557.

31

Ibid.

32

Ibid., p. 568.

33

Testimony of Claudia Mullen before the Presidentā€™s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. Washington D.C. March 15th 1995.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=het0FIAtH3M

34

Claudia Mullen before the Presidentā€™s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, March 15th 1995.

35

Dr. Valerie B. Wolf before the Presidentā€™s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, March 15th 1995.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet12/trnsc12a.txt

36

Joan Mellen. A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFKā€™s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. Skyhorse Publishing2013, p. 32.

37

Judyth Vary Baker. David Ferrie: Mafia Pilot, Participant in Anti-Castro Bioweapon Plot, Friend of Lee Harvey Oswald and Key to the JFK Assassination. TrineDay Press, 2014.

38

Claudia Mullen before the Presidentā€™s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, March 15th 1995.

39

ā€˜Sacred or Profane Pleasures? Erotic Ceremonies in Eighteenth-Century French Libertine Fictionā€™. Marine Ganofsky. Religion in the Age of Enlightenment, vol. 5, p. 231.
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/12227

40

Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 246.

41

Ibid., p. 373.

42

Ibid., p. 283.

43

U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska. Paul A. Bonacci vs. Lawrence E. King Jr., et al. Deposition of Paul A. Bonacci (continuation), October 13th 1993.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuiBsh_Yq2E

44

See, for example, Cathy Oā€™Brien, Trance-formation of America (1995), p. 165. Also David Shurterā€™s YouTube livestream of September 22nd 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1y6guq-yF8&t=5542s

45

ā€˜Army of the Nightā€™. San Jose Mercury News, July 24th 1988.
https://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/aquino01.htm

46

U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska. Paul A. Bonacci vs. Lawrence E. King Jr. Default judgment ruled by U.S. Senior District Judge Warren K. Urbom, 19th February 1999 (page 4 of document below).
https://archive.org/details/97302292-paul-bonacci-court-transcripts-from-larry-king-lawsuit

47

Nick Bryant. The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal. TrineDay Press, 2009, p. 43.

50

MK-ULTRA Subproject 136 proposal (1961), p. 14.

51

Deposition of Paul A. Bonacci (continuation), October 13th 1993.

52

Ibid.

53

U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska. Paul A. Bonacci vs. Lawrence E. King Jr. Hearing held on February 5th 1999 (see link in footnote 46 above).

54

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 223.

55

Ibid.

56

Oā€™Brien. Trance-formation of America, p. 162.

57

Oā€™Brien. Trance-formation of America, p. 163.

58

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 607.

59

Ibid., p. 604.

60

Ibid., p. 245.

61

Deposition of Paul A. Bonacci (continuation), October 13th 1993.

62

ā€˜Franklin Case Witnesses Implicate FBI and U.S. Elites in Child-Torture and Murderā€™. The New Federalist, December 13th 1993. Reprinted in Contact: The Phoenix Project, January 18th 1994, p. 8.
http://www.phoenixsourcedistributors.com/940118.pdf

63

J.R. Sweet. ā€˜Disneyland 1993ā€™. Mormon Monarch, May 23rd 2021.
https://mormonmonarch.com/disneyland-1993/

64

Sweet. ā€˜A Chosen One: Not By My Willā€™. Mormon Monarch, May 23rd 2021.
https://mormonmonarch.com/a-chosen-one-not-by-my-will/

65

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 670.

66

Oā€™Brien. Trance-formation of America, p. 156.

67

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 667.

68

Ibid., p. 665.

69

Oā€™Brien. Trance-formation of America, p. 162.

70

Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, p. 666.

71

Ibid.

72

U.S. District Court, District of Nebraska. Paul A. Bonacci vs. Lawrence E. King Jr. Hearing held on February 5th 1999 (see link in footnote 46 above).

73

ā€˜MK-ULTRA Monarch Project, Part 20ā€™. Phoenix Journal #127, p. 41.
http://www.fourwinds10.com/journals/UnPublished/J127.pdf

74

Mae Brussell. Dialogue: Conspiracy/World Watchers International. KLRB-FM, August 18th 1978.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6km5sUTjaEE

75

Court of Appeals of Nebraska. ā€˜State v. Collinsā€™. 1998.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ne-court-of-appeals/1252943.html

76

Bryant. The Franklin Scandal, p. 219.

77

John DeCamp, interview with Tom Valentine. Radio Free America, circa February 2002 (transcript).
https://web.archive.org/web/20030101011432/http://www.americanfreepress.net/Conspiracy/11_02%20Peculiar%20Ties%20Connect%20Boy.htm

78

Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners. ā€˜State of Louisiana vs. Valerie B Wolf, BCSWā€™. July 19th 2000, p. 16.
https://archive.org/details/valerie-wolf-complaint/page/18/mode/2up

79

Ibid., p. 18.

80

ā€˜The man who fried gay peopleā€™s brainsā€™. The Independent, July 6th 2016.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-man-who-fried-gay-people-s-brains-a7119181.html

81

ā€˜In Memoriam: Valerie B. Wolf, 1948-2002ā€™. Tulanelink (not affiliated with Tulane University).
https://www.tulanelink.com/mind/valeriewolf_box.htm

82

Letter from Mark Lilly, CIA Information & Privacy Coordinator, to J.R. Sweet. 28th September 2020.
https://mormonmonarch.com

83

The Most Dangerous Game. Guerrilla News Network, 2001.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dos224JJc-Y

84

ā€˜Tim Tate on the making of the Franklin Scandal documentary ā€œConspiracy of Silenceā€.ā€™ Spotlight On Abuse, May 2nd 2013.
https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/tim-tate-on-the-making-of-the-franklin-scandal-documentary-conspiracy-of-silence/

85

'Revolution In Their Bloodā€™. Advertiser, July 8th 1989.

86

Joel Warner. The Curse of the Marquis de Sade: A Notorious Scoundrel, a Mythical Manuscript, and the Biggest Scandal in Literary History. Crown, 2023, p. 177.


Source: Commendable Commotion

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