Declassified CIA files reveal blueprint to manipulate Americans’ minds through covert drugging with vaccines | 23 Feb 2026 | A newly released CIA document reveals a chilling blueprint to manipulate minds through covert drugging experiments. The report, added to the CIA’s reading room in 2025, details the government’s once top-secret Project Artichoke that ran from 1951 to 1956, focusing on behavior control, interrogation techniques and psychological manipulation. The seven-page document, titled “Special Research for Artichoke,” with an attachment labeled “Suggested Fields for Special Research Relative Artichoke,” outlines proposals to develop chemicals capable of altering human behavior. It discusses drugs designed for both immediate effects, like truth serums, and long-term influence, potentially administered through food, water, alcohol or cigarettes. Researchers also suggested that such substances could be disguised in medical treatments such as vaccinations or injections. Artichoke served as a precursor to the CIA’s MKUltra program, which later broadened mind-altering experiments on a larger scale. [We knew about MKUltra, and now we know that a precursor program, Project Artichoke, aimed at mind control over a much broader population base. These revelations make it clear that the CIA has posed an enormous threat to U.S. citizens, in addition to the horrors it unleashes on non-U.S. target governments and populations. If we lived in a truly democratic society, the CIA would be dismantled immediately. Of course, we do not live in a democratic society. In many ways, our government is inimical to human welfare. –Michael Rectenwald]