CIA member who uncovered in-house LSD project dies at 89

John K. Vance, 89, a member of the Central Intelligence Agency inspector general's staff in the early 1960s who discovered that the agency was running a research project that included administering LSD and other drugs to unwitting human subjects, died May 27 of respiratory arrest.He died at the Wilson Health Care Center of Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, Md.Code-named MKULTRA (and pronounced m-k-ultra), the project Vance uncovered was the brainchild of CIA director Allen Dulles, who was intrigued by reports of mind-control techniques allegedly conducted by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar techniques on its own POWs and perhaps use LSD or other mind-bending substances on foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro a few years after the project got under way in 1953.As a result of Vance's discovery and the inspector general's report, the CIA halted the testing and began scaling back the project. It was terminated in the late 1960s.

A member of the Maryland Ornithological Society and the Maryland Nature Conservancy, Vance helped in bird banding and also enjoyed gardening, biking, tennis and travel. He was a member of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church in Bethesda, Md.