Sidney Gottlieb August 3, β March 7, was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency 's s and s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra. His older brother was plant biologist David Gottlieb. He was born with a club foot , which got him rejected from military service in World War II but did not prevent his pursuit of folk dancing , a lifelong passion. He decided to transfer to a school that offered an agricultural biology course, and wished to attend the University of Wisconsin.
In order to take the specialized courses he wished to have, he first attended Arkansas Tech University , where he studied botany, organic chemistry, and principles of dairying.
Gottlieb graduated magna cum laude in His accomplishments at the university, paired with a glowing recommendation from Baldwin, won him admission to the California Institute of Technology , where he received his Doctorate in Biochemistry in June , writing his thesis on "Studies of Ascorbic Acid in Cowpeas. Gottlieb met his wife Margaret Moore, daughter of a Presbyterian missionary, [ 3 ] while attending CIT, and then they married. Denied the chance of military service, he sought out another way to serve, and began looking for government work in Washington.
By , his wife and two daughters were living in a cabin near Vienna, Virginia , that had no electricity or running water. Gottlieb's first government position was at the United States Department of Agriculture , where he researched the chemical structure of organic soils.
He later transferred to the Food and Drug Administration , where he developed tests to measure the presence of drugs in the human body. Gottlieb grew bored with this work and sought a more challenging position. In , he found a job at the National Research Council , where he described being "exposed to some interesting work concerning ergot alkaloids as vasoconstrictors and hallucinogens. Baldwin had founded and run the biowarfare program at Fort Detrick years earlier, and had kept Gottlieb in his orbit.
