The CIA and... Dr. Olaf!

Inspired by Kazuki Hirano, who recently accused the American military of developing remote mental telepathy to combat terrorism, I decided to look into the mind control/mesmerism matter further. Lo and behold, Discover magazine reports that in the 1950s, the CIA indeed tested a number of mind-control techniques, including electroshock (which also appears in Dr. Olaf!) as part of a covert project called MKULTRA. MKULTRA--an acronym that was not expanded for reasons that I looked into and will note shortly--attempted to control the minds of both volunteers and unsuspecting American citizens with LSD, radiation, and other methods.

Wikipedia explains the mystery of the project's name:

The project's intentionally oblique CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency's Technical Services Division, followed by the arbitrary dictionary word ULTRA. Other related cryptonyms include MK-NAOMI and MK-DELTA.

Thanks to wikipedia, I also discovered something called Project ARTICHOKE, which allegedly evolved into MKULTRA in 1953. Does mind control research continue, perhaps under the name of some seemingly innocent fruit or vegetable? Some believe it does--though we should each decide for ourselves--provided, of course, that we are not already controlled by sinister forces...