MK-Ultra

Written By Heather Rogers, America's Preeminent Presidential Doodler

Over the summer, I decided to re-read Stephen King’s 11/22/63 with my son. (It’s so freaking incredible. Ties into JFK’s assassination, but it’s obviously fiction. Have you read it?)

I was also somehow convinced against my will to watch Stranger Things with my daughter. (It’s way too scary for me and I’m not sure how I was convinced but here we are. And so far, I haven’t had any nightmares.)

Imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled onto something connecting these two things I’m into with my kids …

MK-Ultra!

The super-secret U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s human experiments program that ran for two decades. I first learned about this listening to a Stuff You Should Know episode back in 2008. The CIA was trying to unlock mind control methods and it involved all sorts of heinous things … like giving unsuspecting Americans LSD.

OK, full disclosure: I don’t believe MK-Ultra is actually mentioned in King’s book. But the unbelievable podcast Who Killed JFK? co-hosted by filmmaker Rob Reiner and journalist Soledad O’Brien. Reiner believes that Lee Harvey Oswald may have been a part of the MK-Ultra experiments. I haven’t finished listening to this series yet, but it’s completely mind-blowing and unexpected.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

For more about MK-Ultra, check out this horrifying video:

Heather Rogers, America's Preeminent Presidential Doodler

Heather isn’t a historian, an academic, or an impartial storyteller… but she has read more than one book about every U.S. president. Out of spite. She was dubbed America’s Preeminent Presidential Doodler by one of her favorite authors and she’s been repeating it ever since. When she’s not reading or doodling history books, she’s a freelance graphic designer and illustrator.

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