Tradecraft: ABC Explores Dark Era of CIA in MKUltra

The Assets may have flopped (unfortunately), but ABC isn't giving up on Cold War CIA miniseries. In fact, they're developing another one from the writer of The Assets, Karen Stillman, based on the Agency's notorious MKUltra program. Deadline reports that the network is developing MKUltra, the story of the CIA's experimental mind control program from the Fifties and Sixties. A precursor of extraordinary rendition and other controversial CIA black ops, MKUltra was one of the infamous "crown jewels" revealed in the Church Committee hearings that shocked the nation in the 1970s. The Agency's Scientific Intelligence Division conducted experiments in human "behavioral engineering" using methods including sensory deprivation, hypnosis, torture and, most famously, drugs. Unwitting American citizens were dosed with LSD as part of these experiments, giving rise to an entire generation's justified paranoia about the CIA - and fueling conspiracy theories for decades to come. LSD and other drugs were also incorporated into the Agency's standard interrogation tactics of the time. This seems like fertile ground for a miniseries. I loved The Assets, and I hope this one gets greenlit.