Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to wonder about the extent to which the CIA really believed this was possible, or if it was more along the lines of "well sure, it sounds batshit, but the Soviets are doing it and if there really is something to it, we don't want to be behind in the game." When one has infinite funding and no ethical oversight, the pit really is bottomless.
Mkultra seems pretty plausible to me, at least with the science they had at the time. LSD was making huge waves in the psychiatric community, and many humint objectives like interrogation and brainwashing are inherently applied psychology. LSD was a breakthrough tool that laid the psyche bare, if only they could discover how to harness it. Combine that with amoral thinking about the cold war and "greater good" and it…
And then they went to work every morning and played their part in monstrous endeavors that—on coming to light—make the rest of us question our faith in humanity.
I don't doubt that some people who wind up doing these things are legitimately sociopathic. But I also have a disturbing suspicion that many of them were probably normal, and bought into the idea that drugging and blackmailing some random person played a role in defending America. What matters more—some lowlife from the streets, or national security? Sacrifices have to be made, etc.
Pretty much every atrocity I know of—while spearheaded by evil people—relied heavily on the ability of normal, decent people to rationalize what they were doing.