The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Paul Hoch.md

category	tags	summary	born	died	location	created	updated
Medicine & Psychology	Person CIA MKULTRA LSD Mescaline NewYorkStatePsychiatricInstitute ArmyChemicalCorps HaroldBlauer MKNaomi	New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene who directed experimental research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute under Army Chemical Corps contract, administered mescaline and LSD to psychiatric patients through intraspinal injection, and bore direct responsibility for the death of Harold Blauer in January 1953.	1902-10-31	1964-12-15	Budapest, Hungary	2026-06-03	2026-10-15

Paul Hoch was born on October 31, 1902, in Budapest, Hungary, and received his medical degree from the University of Göttingen in 1926. He trained at the Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich from 1928 to 1930 before emigrating to the United States in 1933. He joined the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) as an assistant physician in 1943 and served as director of experimental research from 1948 to 1955, holding simultaneous appointments at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, eventually as clinical professor of psychiatry from 1956. In 1955 he was appointed New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, overseeing 28 state hospitals and approximately 100,000 patients. He died on December 15, 1964, in New York City.

Pseudoneurotic Schizophrenia and Early Drug Research

In 1949, Hoch and Philip Polatin published "Pseudoneurotic forms of schizophrenia" in the Psychiatric Quarterly, describing a presentation of schizophrenia masked by neurotic symptoms.¹

At the 1950 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Hoch reported that LSD and mescaline produced symptoms resembling schizophrenia and coined the term "psychotomimetic" for the class of drugs. He published a formal study with James Cattell and Harry Pennes, "Effects of mescaline and lysergic acid (d-LSD-25)," in the American Journal of Psychiatry in February 1952, based on experiments conducted at NYSPI and Columbia.²

Drug Experiments at NYSPI

The NYSPI held a classified contract with the CIA and U.S. Army Chemical Corps through Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division under the designation Project MK-NAOMI, covering the period 1952 to 1953 at an estimated value of $1,000,000. A January 1954 CIA memorandum described the program's purpose as "devising biological weapons that could be targeted at individuals for affecting human behavior," across a range from temporary disablement to death.³

Under this contract, Hoch administered high doses of mescaline and LSD to psychiatric patients through intraspinal injection, producing what he described as "an immediate, massive, and almost shocklike picture with higher doses." He then lobotomized some subjects to compare drug effects before and after psychosurgery, stating that "it is possible that a certain amount of brain damage is of therapeutic value." In one procedure, Hoch administered a hallucinogen followed by a local anesthetic, then asked the subject to describe his perceptions while surgeons removed pieces of his cerebral cortex.⁴

The Death of Harold Blauer

Harold Blauer, a New York tennis professional admitted to NYSPI for depression, died on January 8, 1953, after Hoch administered a mescaline derivative supplied by the Army Chemical Corps. The compound had been provided for NYSPI to test its psychiatric effects so the Chemical Corps could determine its suitability as a chemical warfare agent.

In Barrett v. United States (798 F.2d 565, 1986) the Second Circuit recited the estate's allegation that Hoch, while conceding that the injections were not in accordance with generally accepted medical routine, testified before the New York Court of Claims that the drug had been administered "for diagnostic purposes to Mr. Blauer," and that "in fact, according to the estate, Dr. Hoch was well aware that the mescaline derivative was a new compound not being administered for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes but as an experiment to study its effect for chemical warfare purposes."⁵ The opinion describes Hoch as "the NYSPI medical official in charge of administering the mescaline compound to Blauer."⁵ At the Court of Claims hearing, Hoch testified that Blauer's death was caused by the injection and that its administration "was not in accordance with generally accepted medical practice."⁵ Cattell, Hoch's collaborator on the experiments, told Army investigators: "We didn't know whether it was dog piss or what it was we were giving him."⁶

Within 48 hours of Blauer's death, Army Chemical Corps contract officer Amedeo Marrazzi directed efforts to conceal the Army's involvement. At a July 1954 meeting of federal counsel and medical personnel, Hoch and Marrazzi discussed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims. The death certificate listed the cause as "coronary arteriosclerosis; sudden death after intravenous injection of a mescaline derivative," omitting the Army's role.⁶

The opinion in Barrett places a conference of federal counsel and medical personnel in early July 1954, at which, according to records relied on by the estate, Dr. Amedeo Marazzi of the Chemical Corps and Hoch expressed apprehension about anticipated malpractice claims. At a meeting in Washington on July 12, 1954, Hoch stated that he would not have used the new compound for experimental purposes but for the institute's contract with the Army, and that the experimental nature of the treatment made it a departure from accepted medical practice.⁵ The Second Circuit records that the Court of Claims ordered an $18,000 settlement on July 7, 1955, of which the Army paid $9,000 on June 9, 1955, in an action filed in April 1953. The CIA inspector general's memorandum of August 13, 1975 gives other figures: "The estate sued New York State for $500 K; it was settled out of court for $125 K."⁵⁷

Commissioner of Mental Hygiene and the 1959 LSD Conference

Hoch was appointed New York State Commissioner of Mental Hygiene in 1955, the year after the July 1954 conference of federal counsel. Averell Harriman was elected governor in 1954; Mary Lasker recalled that Lester Markel of the New York Times telephoned to ask whether she knew Hoch, then in charge of research at the institute, and that the appointment was "finally announced in July of '55."⁸ A 1956 University at Albany record identifies him as Commissioner of Mental Hygiene.⁹ He oversaw the state's entire psychiatric hospital system while maintaining his CIA consulting relationship and Army Chemical Corps affiliation. In 1959 he chaired the first international LSD therapy conference, held under Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation sponsorship, with Harold Abramson serving as recording secretary.¹⁰

Footnotes

---

1. Hoch, Paul H. and Polatin, Philip. "Pseudoneurotic forms of schizophrenia." Psychiatric Quarterly 23:248-276, 1949. ↩︎

2. Hoch, Paul H., Cattell, James P., and Pennes, Harry H. "Effects of mescaline and lysergic acid (d-LSD-25)." American Journal of Psychiatry 108(8):579-584, February 1952; Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. Grove Press, 1985. Chapter 1. ↩︎

3. H.P. Albarelli Jr., A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. Trine Day, 2009; CIA memorandum, January 1954, uncovered 2000 by the New York City Attorney General's Office. ↩︎

4. Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, Chapter 1; Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton, The Mind Manipulators. Paddington Press, 1978. ↩︎

5. Barrett v. United States, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. July 31, 1986), statement of facts and discussion. https://static.case.law/f2d/798/cases/0565-01.json ↩︎

6. Barrett v. United States, 798 F.2d 565 (2d Cir. 1986); John D. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. Times Books, 1979. Chapter 4. ↩︎

7. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General, memorandum, "Drug-Related Death of Harold Blauer," August 13, 1975, CIA Reading Room document 00146161. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00146161 ↩︎

8. Columbia University Libraries, Oral History Research Office, Mary Lasker oral history, transcript pages laskerm_1_19_570 and laskerm_1_19_572. https://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/laskerm/transcripts/laskerm_1_19_572.html ↩︎

9. University at Albany, M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, record of a 1956 interview of Dr. Paul H. Hoch, Commissioner of Mental Hygiene. https://archives.albany.edu/description/catalog/apap015aspace_033e27487bc26a06ec8cf9fd535fb0c3 ↩︎

10. Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, Chapters 1 and 2. ↩︎