Investigative journalist testifies that Congress has never been told truth about CIA's MKUltra program

Investigative journalist Tom O’Neill testifying on MKUltra.

An investigate journalist who has closely followed and looked into a controversial CIA mind-control program for nearly three decades told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the CIA has never fully come clean about the program, despite having promised to do so, and that notorious historical figures Jack Ruby and Charles Manson were assets of the program.

Journalist Tom O’Neill made the bombshell claims at a House Task Force hearing on the declassification of federal secrets. The hearing was led by U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who chairs the committee. As O'Neill mentioned in his remarks, Congress last investigated the CIA program, which was launched during the 1950s and was known as MKUltra, back in 1977, at which point CIA officials admitted to running the program for 25 years with the goal of learning how to control the human mind. Officials said at the time that the program had been "a colossal failure." 

"I believe Congress was never told the truth about what this program actually achieved," O'Neill told the committee. He recounted the infamous Manson Family murders committed in 1969, and how Manson had been in contact with CIA officials as far back as 1967. He also revealed Jack Ruby's connection to the CIA. "The ultimate goal of" MKUltra, O'Neill told the committee, was "creating programmed killers."

"Is it your opinion that Manson and Jack Ruby were assets of the intelligence agencies specifically pertaining to MKUltra?" Luna asked O'Neill at one point during the testimony. O'Neill replied that he hasn't been able to "prove absolutely" that Manson was an MKUltra asset, but that all indications point to him having been one. 

O'Neill went on to draw a direct line between Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner infamous for fatally shooting Lee Harvey Oswald two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1964, and Allen Dulles, the former CIA director who oversaw the MKUltra program. 

Author and journalist Stephen Kinzer, a former reporter for The New York Times, also testified at the hearing, saying that "MKUltra was one of the most secret programs in American history." He also wrote a book about MKUltra, but said he's uncovered only a fraction of what was really happening with the controversial program. 

"In its search for ways to destroy a human mind and body, MKUltra conducted the most extreme experiments on human beings that have ever been carried out by a U.S. government agency. By any standard, they qualify as medical torture," Kinzer said at the hearing.

"I am following up directly with the CIA to demand the full release of MKUltra records," Luna said in a post on X after the hearing. "The American people deserve and will be delivered the truth." Luna pointed out that Tuesday's hearing was the first congressional hearing on MKUltra since 1977.

Read O'Neill's full opening remarks here, watch his remarks below and watch the full hearing here.