WAYNE MORRIS: I am speaking with Claudia Mullen, a survivor of U.S. government mind control experimentation and operation. Thanks very much for joining us today Claudia. CLAUDIA MULLEN: You are welcome, and thank you very much for having me on the show. WAYNE MORRIS: We heard some of your testimony that was given to the Presidential hearings on radiation experiments in 1995. How did you get involved in testifying at those hearings? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Well, I'll tell you. It came about because of the information I had given my therapist as the memories started coming back to me, and it was obvious that it was more than just abuse by my mother and even ritual abuse here in New Orleans, but it involved government conspiracy. The information was sent out by my therapist to some experts across the country to be verified, to see if these people did exist, if there were such projects, that I was naming names and I had no idea who these people were, my therapist didn't know who they were. She doesn't do any reading on this type of - any kind of mind control issues - government conspiracies, that type of thing. WAYNE MORRIS: She sent your material out to people that have done research into this? CLAUDIA MULLEN: To people who were doing research specifically on CIA projects. They were sending back, "yes" these people did exist. I was sending information that was not published yet or had only been published under Freedom of Information Act which I had not filed obviously. This information was also sent along to a man named Wally Cummings, who was in charge of obtaining people who could give testimony in the Washington hearings. WAYNE MORRIS: Was he part of the Human Radiation committee? CLAUDIA MULLEN: He wasn't actually part of the committee. It was his job to interview, to find people for the public testimony part. He worked for the Committee. He was interviewing and finding people that had something to say and he interviewed me over the phone and he had heard that I had been giving some information that obviously was valid and had to with radiation, and so he asked me if I would be willing to testify. This was about two weeks before we actually had to testify. I was told that I could speak for ten minutes, and give as much information as I could. I decided to do it. And I went to Washington and testified along with my therapist, and one of her other clients. WAYNE MORRIS: What was the connection between the radiation experiments and the mind control experiments that were done to you? CLAUDIA MULLEN: I had heard a lot about, when I was part of the experiments, they didn't necessarily use a lot of radiation on me other than to take x-rays to keep me healthy, check for damage, broken bones. But I did overhear quite a bit about radiation experiments they were doing, especially in New Orleans, or outside of New Orleans. Obviously it was the same people doing the radiation experiments that were doing experiments on me. So that was the connection. WAYNE MORRIS: This was an incredibly brave thing, to go to the Presidential Hearings and give testimony. Were you aware that you were, in effect, breaking the silence for a lot of other survivors of mind control at the time? CLAUDIA MULLEN: At the time I didn't realize what a step we were taking. It's the type of thing that you just jump in and do without thinking too much about it, because you're afraid if you think too long or too hard about it, you might change your mind. You know it's important, but you're not really sure why it's important at the time. You just know that you need to talk about it and you need to let people know that it did happen. At the time I didn't feel very brave about it, and I didn't realize the repercussions, and what it would mean as far as opening the door for other mind control victims to be able to come forward and talk. I had no idea what it would lead to. I just knew it was important to do. I was being given an opportunity to talk to people in Washington and tell them that these things happened, and they shouldn't have happened. I jumped in and did it? WAYNE MORRIS: How did it feel - the actual experience of giving testimony at the Committee? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Pretty scary. It felt good afterwards. It was overwhelming. They were very nice to us. We felt like we were being looked at under a microscope though, everything you said was being looked at very carefully, torn apart. You were being questioned a lot, but we kind of expected that. Afterwards, it was such a feeling of relief and surprise actually, a scary surprise at the response that we had. I walked into the room and I was just a face, nobody even knew who I was. There were obviously people there from the government. There were CIA people there, military. Pretty frightening. I just kind of walked in the crowd. When I walked out, everybody knew who I was. There was so much support, especially from the other radiation victims. And from the Committee themselves. They were very supportive. WAYNE MORRIS: You felt that they had received your information and were taking the information they were hearing seriously? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Yes. I did. WAYNE MORRIS: And was there any follow-up on the part of the Committee? What was that follow-up as it pertains to the mind control? CLAUDIA MULLEN: The reason that I know they actually listened, even though the recommendations were mainly for radiation experiments, that was what they were looking at. I know they listened to us also because part of the recommendations that came out in October of 1995 was that these particular projects be looked into. They were all MKULTRA projects that I had named, and we were able to give as much testimony in writing as we wanted to. We were only allowed to talk for a certain amount of time, but we could hand in as much information as we could give them. I had handed in twenty pages listing project numbers, names, sub-project numbers, subjects, places, people. The project numbers and names that I gave were actually recommended that these files be pulled. The list that I gave was on there. Now, they haven't actually done it yet, and I am told the reason is because they are waiting for the people involved, until everyone has died. To be quite frank, that's what they said. WAYNE MORRIS: Who told you this? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Well, they didn't tell me this of course. Nobody got back to us. I found out actually over the internet. I spoke to one of the experts that had been filing FOIA in my name for the projects that I had named, and he said he was told directly by the CIA that they did not want to start any real investigation on this until all the people had passed away because they felt like the public would react too strongly and the CIA didn't need this right now. WAYNE MORRIS: Well, the public would react strongly and rightly so. Was there any press coverage at all after giving testimony, or any press contacting you afterwards? CLAUDIA MULLEN: I think there was a brief story in the Washington paper but the emphasis was on the radiation and on that testimony. There was coverage on local cable shows ... we did an interview that night for a local public access television station in Montana ... and of course it was all over the internet afterwards. But not much national coverage, no. The emphasis was on radiation. WAYNE MORRIS: I understand journalist, John Rappoport, compiled your testimony and that of Chris DeNicola in a book. How soon afterwards did that happen? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Immediately. He came out with the book within six months. It's called "US mind control experiments on children - they want to know", by John Rappoport. I was contacted by several other people. One from 20/20 - at the time they wanted my therapist and I to appear on the show. My therapist turned it down so I turned it down. A couple of other people - one man from Washington - a columnist I did an interview with. I did an interview with an attorney. So I did some interviews, but that was for local newspapers, I never really saw them. But there were people calling from all over the country. I had left my therapist's number as my number in Washington. These people were coming up and asking for a card and how to contact me. At the time I knew I was taking a risk, but I didn't want to give any personal information, so I gave my therapist's number and address and that's how they contacted me. I did do some interviews over the phone. The BBC too. WAYNE MORRIS: Was anything done with that interview? CLAUDIA MULLEN: They are still working on the complete show they are doing. They said it's going to take several years to finish. Ours is just a small part of it. Jan Klimkowski is the name of the man doing the show. WAYNE MORRIS: I wonder if you can describe briefly how you were introduced into these experimental programs? CLAUDIA MULLEN: I would say to my knowledge I was first introduced in 1958 when I was 8 years old. I had already been adopted at 2 1/2, my adoptive mother had been abusing me since the day she adopted me. She allowed her friends to abuse me. I was sent to a camp where there was mainly a sex ring I guess you could call it ... a bunch of pedophiles who got together on weekends and holidays and passed kids around. These same people apparently let the people from the government who were looking for child subjects know that's where they would look. Sex rings, adoption agencies. I think they had been looking at me long before the time I was 8 years old, but they we were waiting for me to get to a certain age to use me I guess. So I first knew about it when I was 8 and I was told I was to be tested by some people from the government at Tulane University. It was very important. It was to help stop Communism and I vaguely knew what Communism was back then, so I tried to do the best I could. I thought I was doing a good thing. WAYNE MORRIS: You mentioned that your mother knew some people at Tulane. What was the connection there? CLAUDIA MULLEN: My mother knew the Chairman of the Board at Tulane University Medical School, Darwin Fenner. He was in New Orleans society, probably the highest in society you could get. My mother was a real social climber so she pretty much offered me to Darwin Fenner for anything he wanted to use me for. He was the one who ran this camp. It was called the Covington Camp for Boys and Girls. It was actually his summer home, near New Orleans. I was sent over there, and they would dress up in Mardis Gras costumes because we were used to Mardis Gras, and they would do kind of ceremonies ... but it was mainly just to scare us ... the ceremonies. WAYNE MORRIS: What kind of ceremonies? CLAUDIA MULLEN: He was also good friends with Dr. Robert Heath who was head of the neuropsychiatric department at Tulane and I believe Darwin Fenner wanted to get the grant money the CIA was offering if Tulane would allow them to use the place for experiments. Since he alread knew about me, and they were looking for children who were already abused, that's how I got involved I guess. WAYNE MORRIS: How long did this abuse and experimentation go on with Tulane University? CLAUDIA MULLEN: It went on pretty steadily, quite frequently until I graduated from high school in 1968 and then after that it was more intermitten because I was away from home, my mother had died, it was harder to get a hold of me. They still contacted me. I still had to go in and this went on until probably the last time I remember actually being involved in anything to do with the government was 1988, and I was already 38 years old. WAYNE MORRIS: So, thirty years ... After this, what were you doing in your life? Were you able to work or were you going to school? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Yes. You see I had developed DID or MPD as a very small child, even before I was adopted because at the agency where I was at the orphanage, there were just so many babies, and so few people to take care of us, I guess I started splitting as a natural process to nurture myself, since there wasn't anybody there to do it for me. I had already started splitting back then - can you repeat the question again? WAYNE MORRIS: Were you working after ... CLAUDIA MULLEN: Right, right. Since I had MPD or DID this allowed me to lead an apparently normal life, go to school. I went to college after high school. I dated. I went into veterinary medicine, became a veterinary technician for 12 1/1 years and pretty much led an apparently normal life until the times when they would get a hold of me, and they would use the multiple personalities - contact one of my personalities that would respond to them and she would go back to Tulane or wherever they wanted me to go. But otherwise I was leading a life pretty much like everybody else, you know. Dated, got married, went to nursing school. I had just graduated from nursing school in 1988 when they used me at some convention they had here in New Orleans. WAYNE MORRIS: When did you first realize that you did have DID? Did that manifest itself in different ways apart from the ways they were using you? CLAUDIA MULLEN: When I was 7 years old that's the first real distinct memory I have that there were "children living inside of me" - imaginary friends I called them. I thought everyone did. These friends looked different than I did. They had names. I named them. Some were stronger than me, some were taller, some were more outgoing, whereas others were very shy little girls. So I was aware these kids were living inside me and I thought everyone did. As I got older I sort of repressed the idea of having imaginary friends. I just sort of forgot about it. When they came out, I had no knowledge they were coming out. In 1992, when something happened to me that actually brought all these memories back, then I was diagnosed with MPD and of course I rejected that right away. I denied it except for the imaginary friends because everybody has those. I was really adamant that I didn't have MPD, but after all, there was no getting around that I did. WAYNE MORRIS: Do you have an idea of how many identities were created or you created within yourself? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Close to one hundred, and all but twenty-three have integrated. WAYNE MORRIS: So you still have about twenty-three personalities. Can you tell us about some of the identities and whether they have helped you in some way or ... CLAUDIA MULLEN: Oh yeah. They have all helped me, that's why they were created, to help me survive. Each identity, each personality is created at a time of trauma. That's the only way they can be created. That's the only way you can split yourself, is during a traumatic incident. That identity comes out in order to do a job for you. In other words, to take pain. If you have to do something that goes completely against your nature, then you create someone to do that for you because obviously you can't do it. If you have to act a certain way and you cna't do it yourself, you create someone to do it. It's not a conscious thing, it's an unconscious process. They are all helpful for me in the sense that they do something that I can't do for myself. I have one that gets very very angry. She would come out at times when I would just get furious at my mom or different people that were hurting me ... she would come out kicking and screaming and would try to bite them. Myself, I couldn't get angry. I was afraid to get angry. That's why I have Leslie - she's the one who gets angry. So they are helping in the sense that they do something that I am not capable of doing. But they cannot go against my inherent nature. In other words, none of them would do anything that I would feel was inherently wrong like to kill somebody, they do things that I am not capable of doing just because I am not capable of doing it, but there's none of them that are bad. They are all good. WAYNE MORRIS: What was it that started bringing the memories back? CLAUDIA MULLEN: In October 1992 something happened that was completely unrelated to this and I am told that a lot of victims of child abuse throughout their lives become victims of crime, violent crime, simply because these perpetrators look for people who look like victims and I became a victim of aggravated rape in my house. I was a nurse, working nights, and I came home in the morning, and there was a man waiting for me, and it was pretty traumatic. I didn't tell anyone at first. I tried to handle it and obviously I couldn't. I became depressed and suicidal. Eventually I called the police. The police recommended me to the therapist that I have now, Valerie Wolf. Mainly because she was an expert witness, and they wanted to use her in the trial against the man who had raped me. WAYNE MORRIS: You were going forward and pressing charges at that time? CLAUDIA MULLEN: Yes. And it took 2 1/2 years to go to trial, and during the time I was in therapy, that's when the memories started coming back. I would say probably about six months after the incident happened. These memories started coming that had nothing to do with the rape. Obviously things that had happened when I was a child. At first it was just my mother that I remembered, the way she beat me. Then there were people I remembered from my childhood, and then it started to be memories of strangers, people that I didn't know. Mainly doctors, people in uniforms, military uniforms. I would be in a place that I don't remember ever going to like Maryland. I never thought I had been to Maryland and I was having memories of being there, and these people hurting me, doing things to me, taking tests, being in front of an audience of people and having to perform in different things. These are the kind of memories that started coming back, and they started coming very fast. Once you are triggered to remember, they don't come out in a timely fashion. They just come crashing out and you are so overwhelmed that if you are not in therapy already, then you just end up in the hospital probably because of suicide attempts, because that's the first thing you want to do is kill yourself - before you can even deal with this because nobody wants to believe this really happened to them. When the memories are so real and so vivid and you know it must have happened - then you check out information and you find out this place does exist - that this person was a real person. Then there is no way of getting around the fact that this was a real memory. You try everything you can to prove they are false, that it didn't really happen, that you made this person up in your mind. When it's proved to you that they are real, accurate memories and you have to deal with it - the first thing you do is deny and then you try to get away from it - WAYNE MORRIS: Was it you or your therapist who was attempting to verify the information you were remembering? CLAUDIA MULLEN: At first, neither one of us did. The memories just started coming and after a while I just started thinking that this didn't happen. You can't prove that it happened. I started writing all this information down - my shadows I call them - my alters - they would come out and write down conversations I overheard, descriptions of places I had been to, things that happened to me. They would write it as sort of a letter to me, "remember Claudia? remember when this colonel came to see us?" and they would describe the man, give part of his name. They would remember whole conversations of things. So finally she said "well, I guess we should trying to find out if this is real or not." She actually didn't try to at first because she said the whole purpose of therapy is not so much to find out if it's real or not, but to deal with what is coming, what you are remembering, try to get through it, process it, and get past it. It's not really to find out if it's true or not. It doesn't really matter. If it's happening to you, then it's real enough to you. I wanted to know whether it was real or not, whether these people existed or not. She had no idea. She had never heard of any of it. She was not familiar with the places I was talking about so she had to send it out to people all over the country. She started getting responses back, that yes, she is describing so-and-so, yes he was known to be involved in CIA government experiments. They started calling me and asking me specific questions and I would describe people accurately. People I supposedly had never met. People who had died years ago. I described the inside of places that supposedly I had never been to and yet I could describe what room I had gone to, what it looked like, things like that. That's how it was verified. *********************************************************************** We've been listening to an interview with Claudia Mullen, a survivor of mind control experiments done by the U.S. government. She had referred in her presentation in particular to the third person "she". Claudia was actually describing herself either at an earlier age or as a different alter of her multiple personalities. I would like to also announce that this radio series is being re-broadcast on Monday nights at 10pm and this Monday is the 2nd broadcast in the radio series. On the Sunday morning show we are at broadcast 13 this week. Also for people with web access, you can get transcripts of this radio series at www.mk.net/~mcf/ckln-hm.htm. You have been listening to International Connections here on CKLN FM.