GUATEMALA EXPERIMENTS 1946-1948 
II 
On June 22, 1947 (after artificial inoculation with gonorrhea and syphilis had 
begun in the Guatemalan Army, Penitentiary, and the Psychiatric Hospital), Dr. 
Cutler wrote to Dr. Mahoney “personally and unofficially” with several ques- 
tions. Dr. Cutler first emphasized to Dr. Mahoney the stafF s desire to conduct 
prophylaxis work, and the belief that the treatment work undertaken in the 
Penitentiary had supplied the necessary groundwork to secure “volunteers”: 
“When the program was originally set up it was the plan to get the 
volunteers at the prison and pay them. You are well acquainted with 
the reasons why it was not thus carried out. Drs. Funes, Harlow and 
I have considered the matter carefully and feel that on the basis of 
our experience to date and [of] our work at the penitentiary which 
has resulted, we feel, in confidence in us, that we might approach 
the colo[nel] [Tejeda] and then the prisoners to secure volunteers 
first for more carefully [controlled gonorrhea work and then on 
syphilis. I feel that I can appri[illegible] colonel and the prisoners 
now on a more or less personal basis with [dis]cussion of our army 
experience and say that we still have unanswered] [questions] which 
could be answered there. Doing it openly instead of [illegible] as we 
had considered would, we feel, give us much more mate [illegible] 
time in which to take advantage of it .... It is unfortunate that we 
have to work in such a guarded, even subterranean way, but it seems 
to be very necessary.” 594 
Writing back, Dr. Mahoney endorsed the proposal, saying that the use of 
volunteers other than the type employed up to that point would be “more 
than satisfactory,” as “our budget would stand for almost any fee for volun- 
teers which you consider to be advisable.” 595 
The second concern Dr. Cutler highlighted for Dr. Mahoney in the June 22 
letter involved the replacement of Dr. Hugh Cumming by Dr. Fred Soper as 
the Director of PASB. Dr. Cutler asked Dr. Mahoney about the “extent of Dr. 
Soper’s knowledge of our project” 596 and told Dr. Mahoney that when Dr. Soper 
arrived on July 7, apparently to visit in Guatemala, Dr. Cutler would inform 
him “the less he talks the better.” 597 Responding to Dr. Cutler, Dr. Mahoney 
said that he had never met Dr. Soper himself and told Dr. Cutler “[y]ou will 
have to be guided by your own impressions as to freedom in discussing the 
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