In the novel's second section, Teddy reveals to Chuck that part of the reason he is on the island is at the behest of a New Hampshire senator, to ascertain whether experiments are being carried out on human beings at the direction of the government, in violation of the Nuremberg Code. This plot refers allusively to the MKUltra experiments, a secret project carried out by the CIA.
The project began in 1953, and was only officially stopped in the 1970s, when it was brought to public attention by the Church Committee. Like Dr. Cawley, the project had humanitarian aspirations. Conceived of as a defense of liberal democracy, in its initial phases, it was designed to test under what circumstances individuals could be brought about to abandon their core beliefs. Soon, the CIA began to use the experiments to test the effectiveness of various chemicals, including LSD, as a truth serum. On several occasions, the drug was given to unsuspecting people to test its results. When it became public knowledge in the 1970s, MKUltra permanently tarnished the public's perception of the CIA, giving rise to the present perception of it as a shadowy, all-powerful, unscrupulous organization pursuing its own ends without government oversight.
