United Press International
May 6, 1981

Psychological treatment given Velma Orlikow at a Montreal hospital in the 1950s was not unlike ”brainwashing” at concentration camps, an expert witness has told a court hearing her suit for damages.

In Mrs. Orlikow’s lawsuit against the Royal Victoria Hospital, the late Dr. Ewen Cameron is accused of having given her drugs and treatment that caused her permanent psychological damage.

Cameron, former director of the hospital’s Allan Memorial Institute, was described in court Tuesday as having been the foremost psychiatrist in Canada at the time Mrs. Orlikow, wife of federal MP David Orlikow, had treatment.

”Dr. Cameron was the leading psychiatrist in this country in the 1950s,” Dr. Alan Mann, psychiatrist-in-chief at Montreal General Hospital, told the court.

Mann said Cameron, who was killed in a mountaineering accident in 1967, had been a ”commanding presence” in Canadian medicine even though some of his practices were discontinued after his 20-year tenure at the institute.

Cameron’s use of drugs was ”within acceptable limits known at the time,” Mann said.

Mrs. Orlikow and an expert witness described treatment administered by Cameron as akin to concentration camp techniques.

”If we try to distinguish between brainwashing of people in concentration camps and what Mrs. Orlikow underwent, one sees that there is not much difference. The techniques are quite similar,” said Dr. Gilles Paul-Hus.

Paul-Hus said Mrs. Orlikow, during her treatment, had been subjected to isolation in a small room, exposed to tapes of her own voice played over and over again, and administered controversial drugs including LSD.

Mrs. Orlikow is suing the hospital for $98,000. Judge Marcel Belleville allowed an increase in the claim to $250,000 for pain and suffering, based on elapsed time and evidence introduced in court.

Lawyer Philip Cutler, representing the plaintiff, said the case had been initiated in 1977 when Mrs. Orlikow learned of documents made public in the United States disclosing that the CIA had offered money to Cameron to conduct brainwashing experiments.

Mrs. Orlikow and four other Canadians are seeking damages amounting to over $1 million from the CIA for its role in funding Cameron’s experiments. They claim they were used as guinea pigs in the highly experimental field of treatment of mental illness.