The CIA clandestine operation known as Project MKUltra, inadvertently transformed the use of LSD from a highly classified method of mind control into an extremely popular drug that, in part, defined the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Although the CIA had no intention of providing the American public with the most potent hallucinogen known at the time, their mismanaged mission to create a foolproof truth drug created a sequel to LSD and turned it into a major entheogen. At the time, issues such as the threat of an apocalyptic war with the USSR, terrifying accounts of the Vietnam War, and the struggle for civil rights pervaded the minds of many disillusioned young Americans who were looking for an escape from harsh reality. When they discovered a new and legal psychedelic drug (until 1968) thanks to public advocates like Ken Kesey or Timothy Leary, it created a huge demand, with around 2,000,000 people admitting to having tried it by the end of the 1970s. before Project MKUltra, the foundations were laid for devious scientific research. Immediately following World War II, the United States Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, launched Operation Paperclip, a mission to prevent the Soviet Union from obtaining German scientific research or wartime expertise, while exploiting these sources of information. to the direct benefit of American programs. Over 700 German scientists were recruited by the United States, either voluntarily or forcibly. These scientists were employed in various government programs depending on the focus of their research, but the OSS took a particular interest in the men who had pursued brainwashing and other controversial interrogations... half of the document...presence of LSD in the United States was not affiliated with the government at all, there is clear evidence that, because of MKUltra's experiments, the drug was pushed from a niche market to a national, even global stage. In addition to the many subjects of drug testing, thousands of people were exposed to LSD by reading Leary's published works and attending his public lectures, attending Kesey's Acid Tests and hearing his endorsements, attending Robert Hunters concerts, and witnessing the 'extensive work done by many others, all influenced by MKUltra in some way. Ultimately, the alterations in its use gave the emergence of LSD a sense of irony that truly reflected that era: instead of becoming the government's secret chemical weapon, LSD became a sacrament that shaped a generation, embodying the counterculture belief of “making love, not war.”