Safehouses

CIA safehouses were apartments maintained by the CIA under the MKULTRA program for the purpose of testing drugs on unwitting subjects. The primary safehouses were operated by George White, a Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent recruited by Sidney Gottlieb in 1952. White became MKULTRA subproject #3, renting two adjacent Greenwich Village apartments in New York under the cover identity "Morgan Hall." After the Narcotics Bureau transferred White to San Francisco in 1955, he established a new safehouse on Telegraph Hill with a view of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz, furnished with Toulouse-Lautrec posters, a picture of a French cancan dancer, and photos of manacled women.¹

Surveillance Equipment

CIA technicians installed see-through mirrors and microphones through which eavesdroppers could film, photograph, and record. William Hawkins, a 25-year-old electronics whiz studying at Berkeley, installed four DD-4 microphones disguised as electrical wall outlets connected to two F-301 tape recorders monitored in an adjacent listening post. White had a portable toilet set up behind a two-way mirror as his personal observation post, where he could watch proceedings with drink in hand.¹

The Marin County Branch

TSS officials found the San Francisco operation so successful they opened a branch across the Golden Gate on the beach in Marin County. Unlike the downtown apartment, where subjects could be "brought in for quickies after lunch," the suburban location proved useful for experiments requiring isolation. TSS scientists tested stink bombs, itching and sneezing powders, diarrhea inducers, and delivery systems including a mechanical launcher that could throw a foul-smelling object 100 yards, glass ampules designed to be stepped on in crowds, a fine hypodermic needle to inject drugs through wine corks, and a drug-coated swizzle stick. Staff psychologists David Rhodes and Walter Pasternak planned to spray LSD from an aerosol can on party guests, but summer heat prevented closing doors and windows long enough.¹

The New York Branch

In 1961, MKULTRA officials started a third safehouse in New York under Charles Siragusa, another senior Narcotics Bureau agent and OSS veteran.¹