Mind Control

Lab Notes from an Unintentional BZ Experience
by Dr. James A. Moore
Introduction by Keith H.
Published by Erowid.org Oct 15, 2011 — v1.0

The following pages are from a lab notebook detailing the synthesis of the dissociative dysphoriant BZ (3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate). It includes notes from an accidental ingestion of the substance by chemist Dr. James Moore in 1962. The introduction was written by a student of Dr. Moore’s.

I knew Dr. James Moore at the University of Delaware while I was a student there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I don’t recall how I learned of his connection to the CIA. It wasn’t something he seemed particularly proud of nor did he seem to regret it. It was just a part of his past that he did not mind talking about it when asked. I suspect most people who knew him never heard about it. Dr. Moore was the classic chemist. I remember him in the lab swirling a flask in one hand and drinking water from a Pyrex lab beaker in the other—not considering for a minute the risk he was taking. He was kind and witty, with a droll wit that I loved. During one of our conversations in his office discussing his CIA days, he pulled a notebook off the shelf and showed me the experiments scanned below. I was fascinated and asked if I could photocopy them. Any young chemists reading this could learn a great deal from the way he kept a lab journal. I’ve never seen Albert Hofmann’s lab notebook, but I wonder if he recorded any of his fantastic discoveries in the lab with details like this? I suspect he did as any good scientist would. Searching the web for information about James Moore and this CIA connection yields a broad range of results. In some, he’s portrayed as a sinister CIA operative posing as a chemist at the U of Delaware. Others describe him as a professor being paid by the government to make some random compounds (as happens all the time). As a grad student I remember being paid $100 per compound for unique chemical entities I made as intermediates...