They also basically from the start knew exactly what the USSR and China was supposedly using to create "false" confessions, theres a FOIA document out there thats like a summary of it and its all just like, put a guy in a shitty cell, dont feed him, dont let him sleep well, fuck with him at random so he never gets a sense of rhythm, guilt him about shit and then offer him an out.

And there was never any sign that there was serious research about moving beyond that, so the whole of MKUltra was just to gain an edge and to make all those savage medieval methods into smart american scientific methods instead.

I do remember one somewhat ironically insightful thing from that document though, it remarked that from the US perspective, it seemed like each of the nations they observed had their methods shaped by the character and history of the nation, their actual analysis of the USSR and China from this perspective was just racist stereotypes, but MKUltra is really intensely American in character when it comes to their perspective and goal of using almighty science to unlock the operating system of the human brain.