MKUltra’s exposure survived only through an accidental filing error

Evidence

The unappreciated horror is procedural, not lurid: the program was not undone by conscience but by a filing error. Its accountability survives only because someone once put the wrong papers in the wrong drawer. Everything known is the shadow cast by the sliver that escaped the shredder — proof that the deliberate destruction of a record can succeed almost completely. — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive, 755

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the usual ‘record survives because it must’ assumption; pairs with the Bodleian forgery inversion about institutional trust.