Youth and education Ketchum was born in
Manhattan and brought up in
Brooklyn and
Queens. After graduating from
Forest Hills High School, he attended
Dartmouth College before receiving his undergraduate degree from
Columbia University in 1952. In 1956, he received his
M.D. degree from
Cornell Medical School. He joined the Army that year and served his
internship at
Letterman Army Hospital in
San Francisco (1956–57). After a psychiatry
residency at the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington, D.C. (1957–59), he was granted
board certification in that specialty and joined researchers at the
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Career In 1960, Ketchum agreed to an unconventional assignment at
Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland and spent most of the next decade (1960–66; 1968–69) testing over a dozen potential "
incapacitating agents", including
LSD,
BZ and
cannabis derivatives. He played a pivotal role in psychoactive drug testing of hundreds of military volunteers — known rather prosaically as the "Medical Research Volunteer Program" — a story kept highly classified for almost fifty years until his memoir was published in 2006. In 1964, Ketchum oversaw an important field test at the
Dugway Proving Ground, in
Utah. The test, code-named Project DORK, was intended to determine if an aerosol of the delirium-inducing BZ could incapacitate soldiers at distances of 500–1000 yards. Ketchum directed an army film documenting the effort called
Cloud of Confusion (1964). Ketchum had additional psychiatric training during a
fellowship at
Stanford University in
California (1966–68); during this period, he volunteered at the
Haight Ashbury Free Clinics in nearby
San Francisco (he did not tell his
hippie patients he was an Army doctor). He then returned to Edgewood for a final year; this was followed by tours at
Fort Sam Houston (1971–73) and
Fort Benning (1973–76).
Post-military After leaving Army service as a
colonel in 1976, Ketchum became an
associate professor at the
University of Texas Medical School and later an assistant clinical professor at the
University of California, Los Angeles. As a civilian, Ketchum acquired broad experience in the area of alcohol and drug abuse and published numerous scientific articles and book chapters. His activities at
teaching hospitals included many invited lectures, seminars and the direct supervision of medical students. As a clinician, he spent 30 years in hospital and outpatient settings, as well as community clinics and residential treatment centers. Following his retirement, Ketchum resided in
Santa Rosa, California until moving to
Peoria, Arizona after the
Tubbs Fire (2017) came within a few blocks of his home. He was a lifelong friend of
Sasha Shulgin. ==Works==