Sex and Drugs and… CIA.
Sure, everyone thinks “Rock & Roll”, but in 1950s San Francisco, the CIA was the group that was more aptly associated with the pair, due to Operation Midnight Climax.
Curious about the effects of LSD, a mind-altering drug that had potential use both as a intelligence-gathering tool and as a device for undermining the influence of national threats, the Central Intelligence Agency needed hard data on the effects of taking various dosages. Already, however, problems had been encountered with volunteers.
The obvious way around this was to use criminals as the test subjects. Convicted felons were very easily monitored, and were obvious choices. Unfortunately, the risks associated with using them… word leaking about the experiments, relatives being upset, danger to other prisoners… were deemed to be too great.
The answer? Use unconvicted felons. To this end, the CIA recruited a number of prostitutes, then redecorated part of the offices at their San Francisco headquarters. The hookers would bring their clients back to “their rooms”, dose them on LSD, and have sex with them. The dalliances were recorded by hidden cameras within the room, and afterward the agents would review the footage.
All in the name of science and national security, of course.
If any of the people soliciting the prostitutes learned they had been drugged, they were expected to keep it secret rather than expose their indiscretions – and the film of them – to society.
It worked. Word about the program was kept quiet until discovered in the Agency’s records in the early 2000s. In 2004, the Director issued a public apology for the decades-old program and emphasized no such actions were going on any longer.
And here I always thought the adult film industry started around Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley.
Question of the Night : Have you ever appeared (hopefully not in an “adult” way) on television, in movies or on online video?