When Bateson wrote his report calling for the establishment of CIA and the pursuit of “indirect methods of warfare”, the 1942 Cerebral Inhibition Meeting, OSS ‘black propaganda’ work in the South Pacific, and the Truth Drug and hypnosis exp…Bateson, “witting” or not, was surrounded by a web of agents, consultants, academics, and think-tankers directly or indirectly on CIA’s payroll — Harold Abramson, Frank Fremont-Smith, George Hunter White, James Mysbergh, James Alexander Ham…
Harold Abramson
scientist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Harold Abramson appears as a figure in the Cold War apparatus linking CIA funding, cybernetics research, and experimental pharmacology—he operated within the same network of "witting or not" academics and consultants that surrounded Gregory Bateson during the 1940s-50s. The readings use Abramson to illustrate how intelligence agencies infiltrated and shaped ostensibly independent scientific communities, particularly around MK-Ultra and related truth drug experiments, making him emblematic of the entanglement between state power, cybernetic theory, and institutional science that the course examines.
Mentioned in 1 reading
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Gregory Bateson 2Alexander Cockburn 1Allen Ginsberg 1Ewen Cameron 1Jef St. Clair 1Ken Kesey 1Leo Hollister 1Margaret Mead 1Milton H. Erickson 1Ana Mendieta 1André Breton 1Benjamin Breen 1Frank Fremont-Smith 1George Hunter White 1Irving Janis 1James Alexander Hamilton 1James Mysbergh 1Marcel Duchamp 1Maya Deren 1Peggy Guggenheim 1