He was born in the Bronx and died in Washington. For several decades, he was known as a CIA operative who was responsible for attempts to poison prominent socialist world leaders. He also sought to explore the boundaries of the human mind for his country. For some time, he managed a commune, raised goats, cared for dying patients and was interested in folk dances. His name was Sidney Gottlieb and i-bronx.com tells you more about him.
Childhood in the Bronx
As noted by the Washington Post, the boy, who was named Sidney, was born on August 3, 1918 in the Bronx. At that time, the USA was participating in the First World War. Therefore, many European emigrants were escaping from its consequences. Louis and Fanny Gottlieb, Hungarian Orthodox Jews, were among them.
Sidney was born club footed. (This is a deformity of the legs when they are bent inward and downward. It occurs in one in 1,000 newborns, mostly male.) Sidney’s cousin, Sylvia, recalls that when her mother first saw his little legs after the blanket had been removed, she screamed. A reliable method of treatment was surgical intervention, followed by wearing a bandage. In the case of Sidney, the operation had to be done three times.
His physical disabilities did not end there. Like his father and brother David, he stuttered. This created problems for him in life. Still, this would prevent him from studying and living a normal life.
Education and living conditions
Jewish education is often homeschooling or attending special Jewish educational institutions, where students study the Talmud and Torah, the sacred books of the Jews. That’s why Gottlieb studied Hebrew and performed a bar mitzvah (this is a rite in the life of 13-year-old Jewish boys when they are accepted into an adult Jewish community). After receiving an elementary Jewish education, he attended James Monroe High School, located at Boynton Avenue and East 172nd Street in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx.
His father was an entrepreneur and had a sweatshop (a workplace or enterprise with poor sanitary conditions, low wages and long working hours). Later, he worked as a tailor. Difficult living and working conditions made him a socialist. His views eventually became part of the ideology of Sidney.
The young Jewish boy graduated from school in 1936. He was enrolled at the City College in New York, which was free for all students. After his graduation, he began to look for opportunities for education in a higher educational institution. He liked agricultural biology, which is why he wanted to study at the University of Wisconsin. For this, it was necessary to attend specialized courses at Arkansas Tech University. Here, he studied botany, organic chemistry and milk production on farms. Academic success opened the way for him to his dream university.
During his education, Sidney, along with his neighbor Stanley Mayor, joined the Young People’s Socialist League. However, political views did not prevent him from studying, which he liked. Therefore, in 1940, he graduated from this institution with honors. Upon completion, he wrote a paper on the topic, “Studies of Ascorbic Acid in Cowpeas”. (If you are interested in what cowpea is, it means Chinese cowpea, Chinese mung bean, also long bean, which is a plant of the legume family.)
An excellent recommendation from the supervisor, who was the deputy dean of the faculty, and academic success allowed Sidney to defend his doctoral thesis at the California Institute of Technology.
Family and employment in the Ministry of Agriculture
Studying in California introduced Sidney to a girl who later became his wife and the mother of two daughters and two sons. Her name was Margaret Moore and she was the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary.
Completion of studies made it possible for the young family to move to Washington. Here, Sidney worked at the Department of Agriculture, where he studied the chemical structure of organic soils, the presence of drugs in the human body and raised his children.
At that time, he wrote a letter to his friend Mehr, who was serving in Europe (1944). In the letter, Sidney Gottlieb boasted that his wife had produced eight ounces of milk for their baby. When the latter asked how this was calculated, Gottlieb replied that he simply weighed the baby before and after feeding.
Working at the CIA: exploring the human brain
In 1951, Sidney Gottlieb left his job at the Department and the University of Maryland, where he studied the metabolism of fungi and became an employee of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). A recruiter noted that Sidney was constantly feeling guilty about not being able to take part in World War II because of his childhood club foot. Thus, he was ready to do other patriotic services to make up for it.
At this time, the CIA created a department that was responsible for the study of countering biological weapons of the USSR. Sidney, with his knowledge, patriotism and experimental ideas, was a very important link in the chain. With the support of Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, he headed the MKUltra project, which was engaged in experiments on the human mind.
At first, it was a job in Munich, where prisoners of war were drugged, interrogated and allowed to die. After moving to the United States, Gottlieb began working with prostitutes, drug addicts and also planted drugs on unwitting colleagues. Everything was done to achieve the goal. In total, 149 projects tested people for drugs, studied their behavior and gave them mind-altering medicines under Sidney’s leadership. CIA activities affected 80 US and Canadian universities, hospitals, research foundations and prisons. According to some data, during the research, 1 person died and dozens received serious psychological injuries.
In the early 1960s, it was decided to stop the experiment due to its ineffectiveness.
Sidney Gottlieb and attempted murder
In 1961, Sidney was tasked with killing the Congolese socialist leader Patrice Lumumba. He had to do this by passing the poison to his colleague. The latter decided not to do this and threw the syringe with poison into the river. Lumumba was killed 4 months later.
In 1966, Gottlieb became the head of the CIA’s technical services division. Under his leadership, the poisoned handkerchief, the bacteriological agent for the Congolese leader and the medicine intended for the Cuban leader Fidel Castro were developed. His employees also invented and produced wristwatches, radios, fake mustaches, disappearing ink, small darts that killed without leaving a trace and other deadly devices. Tick poison was collected here, which was used to paralyze muscles or, as the scouts said, involuntary sleep.
In 1973, Sidney resigned from the CIA. He received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal from the agency. After that, he sold his house and took a 2-year trip to Asia. There, he worked as a volunteer in a hospital, returning home in 1975. He faced lawsuits related to his research on humans.
In his later years, Sidney worked as a speech therapist, lived in Washington, Virginia and enjoyed folk dancing, yogurt and goats.