Sidney Gottlieb

Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist who joined the CIA in 1951 and headed the Chemical Division of its Technical Services Staff. From 1967 to 1972 he was Director of Technical Services. He ran MKUltra, the program approved by Allen Dulles in 1953 to research drugs and behavior modification.

Under MKUltra, LSD and other drugs were given to people, sometimes without their knowledge. In November 1953 Gottlieb arranged for Army scientist Frank Olson and others to be given LSD at a retreat; Olson died nine days later in a fall from a New York hotel window. Senate investigators later documented Gottlieb's role in plots against foreign leaders, including supplying poison intended for Congo's Patrice Lumumba.

In 1973, as he retired, most MKUltra files were destroyed on the order of the retiring chief of the Technical Services office, with the approval of the CIA director. Gottlieb later said the work had been ineffective. He spent his later years in other fields and died in 1999.