Reinhard Gehlen also had profound influence in helping to create the National Security Council, from which the National Security Act of 1947 was derived. This particular piece of legislation was implemented to protect an unconscionable number of illegal government activities, including clandestine mind control programs.

With the CIA and National Security Council firmly established, the first in a series of covert brainwashing programs was initiated by the Navy in the fall of 1947. Project CHATTER was developed in response to the Soviet's «successes» through the use of "truth drugs." This rationale, however, was simply a cover story if the program were to be exposed. The research focused on the identification and testing of such drugs for use in interrogations and the recruitment of agents.[5] The project was officially terminated in 1953.

The CIA decided to expand their efforts in the area of behavior modification, with the advent of Project BLUEBIRD, approved by Director Allen Dulles in 1950. Its objectives were to: (1) discover a means of conditioning personnel to prevent unauthorized extraction of information from them by known means, (2) investigate the possibility of control of an individual by application of special interrogation techniques, (3) investigate memory enhancement and (4) establish defensive means for preventing hostile control of agency personnel. In August 1951, Project BLUEBIRD was renamed Project ARTICHOKE, which evaluated offensive uses of interrogation techniques, including hypnosis and drugs. The program ceased in 1956. Three years prior to the halt of Project ARTICHOKE, Project MKULTRA came into existence on April 13, 1953 along the lines proposed by Richard Helms, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence CDCI with the rationale of establishing a "special funding mechanism of extreme sensitivity."[6]