MKNAOMI was the code name for a joint Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

/CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 research program lasting from the 1950s through the 1970s. Unclassified information about the MKNAOMI program and the related Special Operations Division is scarce. It is generally reported to be a successor to the MKDELTA project

Project MKDELTA

MKDELTA, like its successor MKULTRA, was a mind control and interrogation operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency. It involved the use of biochemicals in clandestine operations.According to the Church Committee report :...

 and to have focused on biological projects including biological warfare

Biological warfare

Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...

 agents—specifically, to store materials that could either incapacitate or kill a test subject and to develop devices for the diffusion of such materials.

During the first twenty years of its establishment, the CIA engaged in various projects designed to increase U.S. biological and chemical warfare capabilities. Project MKNAOMI was initiated to provide the CIA with a covert support base to meet its top-secret operational requirements. The purpose was to establish a robust arsenal within the CIA's Technical Services Division (TSD) and of which was to consist of various lethal and incapacitating materials. This would enable the TSD to serve as a highly maintained center for the circulation of biological and chemical materials.

Surveillance, testing, upgrading, and the evaluation of special materials and items were also provided by MKNAOMI so as to ensure that no defects and unwanted contingencies emerged during operational conditions. For these purposes the U.S. Army's Special Operations Command

United States Special Operations Command

The United States Special Operations Command is the Unified Combatant Command charged with overseeing the various Special Operations Commands of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps of the United States Armed Forces. The command is part of the Department of Defense...

 (SOC) was assigned to assist the CIA in the development, testing, and maintenance procedures for the biological agents and delivery systems (1952). Both the CIA and SOC also modified guns that fired special darts coated with biological agents and various poisonous pills. The darts would serve to incapacitate guard dogs, infiltrate the area that the dogs were guarding, and then awaken the dogs upon exiting the facility. In addition, the SOC was also designated to research the potentials for using biological agents against other animals and crops.

A 1967 CIA memo which was uncovered by the Church Committee

Church Committee

The Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...

 was confirmed to give evidence of at least three covert techniques for attacking and poisoning crops that have been examined under field conditions. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 abolished any military practice involving biological weapons and Project MKNAOMI was dissolved. On February 14, 1970, a presidential order was given to outlaw all stockpiles of bacteriological weapons and nonliving toxins. However, despite this presidential order, a CIA scientist was able to acquire an estimated 11 grams of deadly shellfish toxin from SOC personnel at Fort Detrick

Fort Detrick

Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland, USA. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center for the United States' biological weapons program ....

. The toxin was then stored in a CIA laboratory where it remained undetected for over five years.

See also

• Project MKULTRA
  Project MKULTRA
  Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
  
  
• Human experimentation in the United States
  Human experimentation in the United States
  There have been numerous experiments performed on human test subjects in the United States that have been considered unethical, and were often performed illegally, without the knowledge, consent, or informed consent of the test subjects....
  
  
• Project ARTICHOKE
  Project ARTICHOKE
  Project ARTICHOKE was a CIA project that researched interrogation methods and arose from Project BLUEBIRD on August 20, 1951, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence...
  
  
• Project CHATTER
  Project CHATTER
  Project CHATTER was a United States Navy program beginning in the fall of 1947 focusing on the identification and testing of drugs in interrogations and the recruitment of agents. Their search included laboratory experiments on both animal and human subjects...
  
  
• Project MKDELTA
  Project MKDELTA
  MKDELTA, like its successor MKULTRA, was a mind control and interrogation operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency. It involved the use of biochemicals in clandestine operations.According to the Church Committee report :...
  
  
• CIA cryptonym
  CIA cryptonym
  CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to reference projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc. The cryptonyms as described in this article were in use at least from the 1950s to the 1980s...
  
  
• Kurt Blome
  Kurt Blome
  Kurt Blome was a high-ranking Nazi scientist before and during World War II. He was the Deputy Reich Health Leader and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council...
  
  
• Erich Traub
  Erich Traub
  Erich Traub was a German veterinarian and scientist/virologist who specialized in foot-and-mouth disease, Rinderpest and Newcastle disease. Traub was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps , a Nazi motorist corps, from 1938–1942...
  
  

External links

• Baltimore Sun article
• Results of the 1973 Church Committee Hearings, on CIA misdeeds, and the 1984 Iran/Contra Hearings
• Mind Controllers | By Dr. Armen Victorian | A 10-page Summary
• 94th Congress, 2nd Session Senate Report No. 94 - 755 | MKNAOMI
• Claimed reproductions of declassified MKNAOMI documents