CIA brain experiments pursued in veterans’ suit, Paedophile ring in Cornwall

CIA brain experiments pursued in veterans’ suit By Jeff Stein 11/24/2010 The CIA is notorious for its Cold War-era experiments with LSD and other chemicals on unwitting citizens and soldiers. Details have emerged in books and articles beginning more than 30 years ago. But if military veterans have their way in a California law suit, the spy agency’s quest to turn humans into robot-like assassins via electrodes planted in their brains will get far more exposure than the drugs the CIA tested on subjects ranging from soldiers to unwitting bar patrons and the clients of prostitutes....

In 1961, a top CIA scientist reported in an internal memo that "the feasibility of remote control of activities in several species of animals has been demonstrated…Special investigations and evaluations will be conducted toward the application of selected elements of these techniques to man," according to “The CIA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate,” a 1979 book by former State Department intelligence officer John Marks.
“[T]his cold-blooded project,” Marks wrote, “was designed … for the delivery of chemical and biological agents or for ‘executive action-type operations,’ according to a document. ‘Executive action’ was the CIA's euphemism for assassination.”
The CIA pursued such experiments because it was convinced the Soviets were doing the same.

Victims have sought justice for years, in vain. Now, almost 40 years later, a federal magistrate has ordered the CIA to produce records and witnesses about the LSD and other experiments “allegedly conducted on thousands of soldiers from 1950 through 1975,” according to news accounts.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John Larsen’s Nov. 17 order exempted the agency from having to testify about electrode tests on humans, but Gordon P. Erspamer, lead attorney for the veterans, says “we are pursuing this as well.”
“There is no question that these experiments were done,” Erspamer said by e-mail Tuesday, “but defendants say that they used private researchers and test subjects drawn from prisons, hospitals and nursing homes as subjects, not active duty military [personnel]. CIA said it had no one knowledgeable on this topic.”

Erspamer, senior counsel in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster, said “several” CIA witnesses “are…still alive,” naming some that have been publicly identified, but opting to keep secret others before he calls them.
Papers filed in the case describe “electrical devices implanted in brain tissue with electrodes in various regions, including the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, the frontal lobe (via the septum), the cortex and various other places,” Erspamer said, drawing on [research papers] ( http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/spytalk_heath_document.pdf ) written by government scientists....

“A lot of this work was done out of Tulane University using a local state hospital and funding from a cut-out (front) organization called the Commonwealth Fund,” he continued, again drawing on the research papers.
“We tried to get docs from Tulane, but they told us that they were destroyed in the hurricane flooding.”....
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/cia_brain_experiments_pursued.html


Paedophile ring in Cornwall 'abused at least 30 girls' 26 November 2010 A third man involved in a paedophile ring which police say abused dozens of girls has been convicted of sex crimes. James Machin was found guilty at Truro Crown Court of 10 sex offences relating to girls under 13. Two others were convicted of sex abuse charges in 2008. Police described the abuse by the men in the Camborne area, found in a three-year investigation, as "horrific". One victim was five years old. Inquiries began in December 2007 after a victim's parent raised concerns.

Abused at house
Two girls were abused by the same three men, the court heard.
John Barrett, 49, from the Camborne area, abused two girls, who were aged five and seven when the crimes first started, and passed them on to John Wrey to do the same. Barrett was jailed for 14 years and 6 months in 2008 for 16 sexual offences.

Devon and Cornwall Police
Wrey, 55, from Hayle, who was arrested at the same time as Barrett, is serving a five-and-a-year sentence for his part in the abuse after he was also convicted in 2008. On Friday a jury decided, after two days of deliberations, that Machin was also guilty of similar sex offences against the girls which Barrett had passed on to him. Machin, 54, from Falmouth, who was arrested in June 2009 and had denied all 10 counts, has yet to be sentenced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-11839816