[31][2] In her book, In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada,[32] author Anne Collins explored the history of Cameron and Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute. He died in 1958, leaving an inheritance of 57,000 worth about 1m today. Ben: But the Canadian and US governments could take accountability for their support of Cameron. Clan Cameron Archives. In this, he hoped to establish a suitable method to reinstate a form of justice in Germany that could prevent its society from recreating the attitudes that led it from the Great War to World War II. And he didn't achieve that either. He subsequently established Blairmore Holdings Inc in 1982, the fund now at the centre of the Panama Papers controversy, and where he was paid $20,000 a year as a director. Ewen passed away on month day 1915, at age 84 at death place. [1] In papers published during this time he linked RNA to memory. Memories are not the most reliable form of evidence. To prevent this, the West would have to take measures to reorganize German society. So I think in a certain way they believed that what fiction writers could come up with, somebody could actually make real. It describes various personalities that he believed were of marked danger to all members of society. They claim the governmentplayed a role in the supervision and control of these experiments, whichwere part of the CIA's MK-ULTRAprogram of covert mind-control. from the University of London in 1925, and an M.D. He clearly had his mind set on doing unorthodox research long before the Agency front started to fund him. Rauh: So any documents that would show the treatment of the plaintiffs in this case were destroyed? There are a few ways to reach us: This content was originally created for audio. 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. Research genealogy for Donald CAMERON of Ardnamurchan, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, UK, as well as other members of the CAMERON family, on Ancestry. Amory: With the information we do have about Cameron, we know this: his so-called treatment didnt cure mental illness, and it didnt control peoples minds. Typically, I would show up there and, if it was a Friday, ask if I could have a lift down to Lake Placid. Amory: And, they delivered, with a full transcript of Duncans deposition from November, 1983. 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: 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. Latest Revision: September 1, 2008. Duncan: Not really, I certainly don't know anything about the treatments he was using, I didnt know anything about that. He died on 7 August 1874, in Nokomai, Otago, Otago, New Zealand, at the age of 74 . I mean, he was fascinated with the future in his own field of psychiatry, medicine and government. They fear the stranger, they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die." There was also Donald Hebb, who ran McGills psychology department at the time Cameron was running its psychiatry department. About 55 families of victims who underwent medical experimentation in the 1950s and 1960s are suing for millions of dollars. [7], Donald Ewen Cameron was born in Bridge of Allan, Scotland, the oldest son of a Presbyterian minister. [28] His work was inspired and paralleled by the psychiatrist William Sargant, who was also involved with the intelligence services and experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage. Canada. Cameron believed firmly in clinical psychiatry and a strict scientific method. For instance, he was careful to say he didnt know anything about his dads treatment regimen at the Allan, which may very well be true. Even today, remnants of [Dr. Donald Ewen] Cameron's experiments at the Allan Memorial [Hospital] appear in torture methods at places like Guantanamo Bay." This was only one instance at one university, mind you. So we reached out to one of the most comprehensive archives in the world: The Library of Congress. That would have been the cultural environment in which people like Sidney Gottlieb grew up. Cameron became the first director of the Allan Memorial Institute as well as the first chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill. When Ewen Alexander Cameron was born in 1800, in Fort William, Highland, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, John Muillear Cameron, was 28 and his mother, Margaret Frazer, was 22. [30][bettersourceneeded], In 1980, the Canadian investigative news program The Fifth Estate interviewed two former patients of Cameron's who were among several of his ex patients who were at that time suing the CIA for the long term effects of Cameron's treatment. Patients were tested in the Radio Telemetry Laboratory, which was built under Cameron's direction. Thank you! In 1745, when Charles Edward Stuart came to Scotland, Lochiel at first refused to meet him but eventually went to the Bonnie Prince. Amory: He remembers his dad working a lot during this time, which, definitely tracks. Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron Cameron was a leading figure in psychiatric research, and was working as a professor in Albany when he was invited to Montreal to become the first director of the recently founded the Allan Memorial Institute, which housed the psychiatric department of the Royal Victoria Hospital, and was affiliated with McGill University. Everyone who makes a monthly donation will get access to upcoming bonus content from the making of our series. Amory: Author Stephen Kinzer, who wrote the book about the CIA and Mind Control, says, after Vietnam, this same literature got used elsewhere. You have been subscribed to WBUR Today. [27] Such consequences included incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents. In 2012, Cameron said he would be prepared to publish the details of his tax returns. I wasnt destroying documents. Were they *destroyed* or did you just take the patients name out? And the funeral was yet another opportunity for Marian and her siblings to learn more about the mother who had been absent for so much of their childhoods. . 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. David Camerons personal finances have come under close scrutiny in recent days. That was just something we wanted to get clarification on. Ex-husband of Enid Agnes Maud Watson. And in that sense, I think his ambition overrode his skills and his ability to do the research. He was there when his legal partner, Joseph Rauh, took Camerons deposition. Anyone with any appreciation of the complexity of the human mind would not expect that you could erase an adult mind and then add things back with this stupid psychic driving., Amory: The CIA also turned its back on Cameron. Known as an effective businesswoman, she set up the furniture company Oka, where she serves as chief executive. In the late 1940s, Cameron presented his ideas in a lecture entitled Dangerous Men and Women. Duncan: Talking about him, it should be easy, but sometimes it's sort of emotional. (Beyond Nuremburg, ABA Journal March 1997; News accounts of five legal cases at: The Law and Mind Control Mind Control Through Five Cases). Her life was sad. Psychiatry would play a disciplinary role. And people talk about the transmission of trauma through generations. Ben: Even though Cameron never gave the CIA the keys to control peoples minds, he did give them the tools to break peoples minds down experimental drugs, recordings on loop, sensory deprivation. Ben: But do you even though you had nothing to do with it do you have any feelings of sadness about those folks and what they've gone through? She was not staying in this little town. Marian Read: So for me, the importance of all of this is to get it out of the shadows of pulp fiction, you know Amory: This is Marian Read. Amory: Just not in the way he might have hoped. Ben: Would you have anything that you would want to say to Dr. Cameron or his family? She said she received 12 boxes of her husbands papers after he died, but that, quote, If I had these papers, I wouldnt necessarily let you see them. The prime minister now says neither he nor his family will benefit from any offshore funds now or in the future. Not only was Ewen Cameron running the Allan Memorial, but he was leading psychiatric organizations, he was teaching at McGill University, and he was still seeing private patients. Jim Turner: The most salient point that I recall is that Camerons son told us that he'd taken his father's private records and had destroyed them. And he was searching for ways of doing something about them. [34], Naomi Klein states in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to MKUltra were not about mind control and brainwashing, but "to design a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources.' And so even all these years later, it's part of my life. Mr Donald Ewen Cameron. Amory: Marians mom died three ago. Because it would seem to me, or I was concerned as a lawyer, that it might be a breach of the patient-doctor privilege. Camerons techniques have no therapeutic validity whatsoever; they were comparable to Nazi medical atrocities. According to Cameron's psychiatric analysis of the German people, they were not suitable to have children or hold positions of authority because of a genetic tendency to organize society in a way that fostered fearsome aggression and would lead to war rather than peace; he would repeatedly use the German as the archetypal character structure on which to ground the most psychologically deviant humans. The paper stated that German culture and its people would have offspring bound to become a threat to world peace in 30 years. Ben Brock Johnson: So what do you have in front of you here? He also organized the structure of mental health services in the western half of the province, establishing 10 functioning clinics; this model was used as the blueprint for similar efforts in Montreal and a forerunner of 1960s community health models. And we would take off. And, until theres true accountability for what happened and what is still happening, it never will be. Amory: In the Lake Placid community where Dr. Camerons family spent the bulk of their summers, his sudden death from a heart attack while hiking was big news. Jim: But again, you know, the deposition transcript, you're going to have to rely on that, like we did. [citation needed][21]. Amory: In the early 60s, MK-ULTRA director Sidney Gottlieb took the so-called treatments Cameron used on his patients at the Allan and brought them back to the CIA. Although society had established sanctions against the spread of infectious diseases, Cameron wanted to extend the concept of contagion to chronic anxiety. Research genealogy for Donald Ewen Cameron of Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, USA, as well as other members of the Cameron family, on Ancestry. 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. [clarification needed] Those Germans affected by the events that led to World War II were of utmost concern. Cameron began to base some of his notions on race, as is seen in his theories regarding the German people. These experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the Institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postnatal depression; many were permanently debilitated after these treatments. 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, later on to guidebooks for what we now call enhanced interrogation at places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Two of my sons are lawyers and they say it isnt a good idea.. Donald Ewen Cameron was born in Bridge of Allen, a small town in Scotland, on December 24, 1901. Duncan: I think the furthest I got was to his office. 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. 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. If we can succeed in inventing means of changing their attitudes and beliefs, we shall find ourselves in possession of measures which, if wisely used, may be employed in freeing ourselves from their attitudes and beliefs in other fields which have greatly contributed to the instability of our period by their propensity for holding up progress, In Cameron's book Life is For Living, published in 1948, he expressed a concern for the German race in general. [29], Sid Taylor stated that Cameron used curare to immobilise his patients during his research. From 1939 to 1943 he was professor of neurology and psychiatry at Albany Medical College, and at the Russell Sage School of Nursing, also in the Albany area. Despite the horrific abuse, the American and Canadian psychiatric establishment closed ranks. Duncan: Yes. And you can see this manual that's been found all around the world, from hellholes to modern democracies. The Department of Justice says it is reviewing the court's latest decision. Though he did visit the Allan Memorial on occasion. The title is The Understanding Man. Lake Placid in particular, and the northern Adirondacks in general, have lost suddenly, tragically, but in a sense, beautifully, probably their most distinguished citizen. 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. Camerons current register of interests also includes the familys Edwardian terrace house in North Kensington. Through his instruction of nurses and psychiatrists he became an authority in his areas of concentration. Amory: We definitely will. Although Cameron rejected the Freudian notion of the unconscious, he shared the Freudian idea that personal psychology is linked to the nervous nature. Ironically, his lasting impact would be on how to destroy the human mind, not how to repair it. Those with anxieties or insecurities and who had trouble with the state of the world were labelled as "the weak"; in Cameron's analysis, they could not cope with life and had to be isolated from society by "the strong". But none of us trained in psychiatry. Ben: But, as human experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute, and MK-ULTRAs mind control efforts, fade into history, reduced to references in tv shows and video game plot points, there are troubling examples of these techniques still in use today. 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