I am not MkUltraGirl

I have never claimed to be "MkUltragirl" or envied victims of torture. I'm not trying to build a case or win a settlement. I'm just trying to get a handle on inexplicable events in my family history. In trying to prove that I, as a child, was taken to military bases and used in secret Cold War experiments, I've had to rely on various sources including:

My own fragmentary childhood memories

Things I was told (and not told) by parents, relatives, and family friends as I was growing up

Historical records that place my family and me at the centre of the MKULTRA project at McGill and around Montreal in the 1950s and 60s

 A single file card (obtained with great difficulty from McGill's patient records department) stating my father was a Cameron patient in 1962

 An emptied 'Psychiatry' file for me, dated 1955, i.e. age 4 which I was shown by McGill Records, but not allowed to keep. I was definitely hospitalized for 'Pneumonia' that winter, but no records exist for that hospitalisation during which my parents were told I 'nearly died.' By far the likeliest explanation is that my bout of pneumonia was the cover for slipping me into Dr. Cameron's secret LSD experiments on children, for which all records were later emptied, hidden, or destroyed.

My school records from 1958-59 (when I was in Second Grade) show I was absent for exactly 100 out of 200 school days) -- which was remarked on but never explained at the time. That was exactly when Cameron's subproject 68, involving drugs, hypnosis, ECT, and sensory isolation was at its height -- and there are CIA records to show that, which allude to "new research tools" he was using, probably children. 

Photos from our family album, taken about a year apart, possibly snapped en route to a military base outside Montreal. It seems my parents were documenting these trips.

 

I would be the first person to admit that the above list doesn't constitute proof in the legal sense and would probably not get me past the first interview with a lawyer -- and I have spoken about my case with Allan Stein, of Stein and Stein, who has successfully represented other survivors. He advised me not to pursue compensation, and showed me a thick file of letters he has received from dozens of people across Canada who were in programs similar to the most infamous one at McGill, as he explained why he was unable to help them.

 

I'm definitely not 'MKULTRA Girl' nor would I want to be, but I have had flashbacks of being electro-shocked by a team of white-coated men. MKULTRA doctors and their military colleagues worked in secrecy and didn't leave many traces -- just scars on those who survived. The other children lie in unmarked graves.

I recently looked more closely at another photo of me, below -- taken in 1954 (the colour of the license plate is proof of the year). It's one of the series showing my brother and me at different ages, wearing different clothes, at various locations: always in springtime in deserted roadside locations.

 

The interesting thing about this photo -- apart from my cute outfit (sturdy pants, probably overalls, worn under a spring coat) and innocent smile -- are the reflections clearly visible on the hood of the Ford Consul -- my dad was always a "Ford" man. On the left, a square-shouldered male figure in a fedora, who must be my father. On the right, not so visible, the photographer (probably my mother) who is getting me to pose. And also on the right, clear reflections of a flag flying in the wind, and some buildings: one of them low to the ground, the other with two storeys. Yes, it definitely looks as if we've just arrived at the military base and are about to go inside, and my parents are recording the moment when I begin my career as a Cold War soldier.

The license plate number 223 69 adds up to "22" which happens to be my Life Path number in numerology.  The design tells us it's a black and yellow 1954 Quebec plate -- which matches my age in the photo, as I look to be between 3 and 4 and had recently recovered from a bout of pneumonia.

It's another piece of the puzzle. But proof? Proof is elusive, unless the missing records surface. I've seen my Psychiatry file from 1955 at McGill's Royal Victoria Hospital, where no children were supposed to have been admitted. It had been emptied.

Stable building, Allan Memorial. Cameron's behavioral lab was in the basement