The Korean War Memorial in Washington honors the Americans who died in that fight. Even as they were seeking an interview, they learned that he was being sued in civil court by the family of an aspiring artist whom he had allegedly drugged with LSD in Paris in 1952. Other questions gave rise to answers sufficient to stand plausibility on its head. He and his wife were both fun people, recalls Curtis B. Thorne, a Detrick veteran who pioneered anthrax studies at the University of Massachusetts. Eric D. Olson is dual-qualified as a United States (California) attorney and Solicitor of England and Wales and has a complex international litigation, arbitration, and strategic counseling practice. No one needed to debate the next step, Alibek wrote in his 1999 book Biohazard. When he died in 1965, Hoch was eulogized by two of his closest friends, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, who would soon be exposed as administrator of some of the most horrendous CIA-funded experiments on record, and New York Gov. Clinching the story Errol Morriss Wormwood is a groundbreaking hybrid of non-fictional and fictional storytelling modesalthough no matter how you classify it, its the years towering cinematic achievement. For myself, however, the likelihood of Dr. Abramsons direct involvement in the death of Dr. Olson is less plausible than that it was the outcome of the C.I.A.s own calculated misdeeds. In combination with the scientific findings the above ground investigations would contribute to a better understanding of how Dr. Frank R. Olson came to his death. His library housed some 4,000 volumes related to conjuring. I can see why the Olson family feel so dissatisfied with the official verdict of suicide as the cause of his death. The government has long denied the charge of murder. Was the government afraid Frank Olson might reveal state secrets? Although he remained handicapped for life, he compensated by teaching himself to become a graceful square dancer. Thus the Medical Examiner was informed that Blauers death was connected with secret Army experiments, but he was also told that this information was not to be disclosed. This was the same office of the New York City Medical Examiner that months later received the body of Frank Olson. In a report to the CIA on the death, Abramson wrote that the LSD experiment was designed especially to trap [Olson]. This conflicted with Gottliebs story and raised a troubling possibility: that the LSD experiment was actually designed to see whether Olson could still be trusted to keep the agencys dark secrets. He put his bet on Gottlieb, and Sidney did the damage. By the 1960s, Alice had developed a drinking problem that eventually led to the loss of her job as a teacher and a drunk driving arrest on Christmas Eve. It was the first time they had spoken in three days, and Alice was relieved to discover that his mood had improved (a state of mind in stark contrast to the angst-ridden portrait depicted by the CIA). But documents show that they included at least one version of the biological dart, dipped in shellfish toxin and fired from a rifle using a pressurized air cartridge. Sometimes lacerations result, which is a tearing injury from impact and has ragged or abraded edges, often with bruising. Several times Sidney Gottlieb came out, Feldman assured me. Its an easy-going life they lead, but they have a secret mission. In Oberursel, in the Taunus hills north of Frankfurt, hidden in old half-timbered houses, the US Army led a quiet interrogation center: Camp King. Further the fact that no autopsy had been performed on Olson militated in favor of our discovering new and possibly determinative evidence to shed new light on his death. Albarelli, and they found him skillfully evasive. Onward! Only researchers had access to LSD through legitimate channels, but when publicity created a demand for LSD, hip chemists rushed to create a supply. The manual, declassified by the CIA in 1997, contained the following eerie passage: The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Excuse me? said Eric. White, who had been instrumental in the cover-up, was promoted to district supervisor. The glaring gap that still remained pertained not to what had happened in 1953 but to what had happened in 1975. As Alice would later note, it wasnt the best choice of movies, given her husbands mood. His first order of business was to visit room 1018A at the Statler Hotel (by that time, renamed the Pennsylvania Hotel). The success of intelligence operations almost always rests on the ability to transmit information clandestinely. Even in 1943, during the same period when he was seeking combat duty in Europe, he wrote in his analysis of Hitler that there is a great need now rather than later, for some form of World Federation (Murrays italics). This memorandum proved persuasive. He told the police that he worked for the Defense Department and he didnt know why Olson had jumped from the window, but he did know that Olson suffered from ulcers and might have been suffering from job-related stress. We put various poisons in Castros cigars but none of that worked. Its intense potency in even miniscule amounts would make it easy to administer covertly. had not turned over to my team Olsons fingerprints or dental records. I agree.'' As I have found in other states the Maryland statutory provisions governing exhumations are haphazard, spotty and unclear. The sub-machine gun is especially adapted to indoor work when more than one subject is to be assassinated. Abdominal wounds were once nearly always mortal, but modern medical treatment has made this no longer true. Both decisions must have been reached some time Friday. Officially, the MK-ULTRA program ran from 1953 to 1964, at which time it was renamed MK-SEARCH and continued until 1973. The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject. Frederick News-Post When we can do it right.''. I find an unholy desire to tell you about the worst fiasco we ever had, which is why this letter has to be UltraBAP [Burn After Perusal]. Place and time, the anchors of sanity, were about to come unmoored. Albarelli came to Olson in his research into the case. Forty-one years agoon June 26, 1961Nils (then twelve years old) and Eric (then sixteen) set out on our bicycles from this house and began cycling to California. First, however, Gottlieb had to test the compatibility of LSD to his purpose. cit. in the summer of 1953 Frank Olson travelled to Britain, once again to visit Parton Down. But his new life abroad offered little insulation from the past. Carried out by a team led by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic Science at The National Law Centre, George Washington University, it could find no sign of the cuts and abrasions that the first autopsy said had been caused by crashing through the window glass. December 23, 2001. He was intensely patriotic and served on the Committee for National Morale. When Alice asked if he had broken security, Olson replied, You know I would never do that. Although he revealed little more, he did tell his wife that he planned to resign his job and retrain himself as a dentist. The name itself was a variation on ULTRA, the U.S. intelligence program behind Nazi lines in World War 11, of which the CIAs veteran spies were justly proud. He said: Norm, did you ever see a man die? I said, No. He said, Well, I did., Olson told Cournoyer that CIA interrogators were using experimental techniques first employed in Nazi drug experiments during wartime. But his plans were not to be. Was Lashbrooks memory playing tricks on him, or was he playing hob with the truth of the matter? His devotion to the case derailed a promising career as a clinical psychologist that began with a doctorate from Harvard. Today, more than 50 years later, Donald Falconer lives in a convalescent home not far from Frederick. Hed been in the house on the telephone. He owned a farm in Frederick Maryland, to which I would journey with my family on many occasions. This area includes the production of various physiological conditions which could support present or future clandestine operations. No would-be A students in any of my classes in law or forensic science were game to be guinea pigs in such an experiment. . On the left side of the body, there was an indication of hitting something hard with the bottom of the foot. From time to time, he referred to the death of your father and, as I clearly recall, he said his paperwork on the case had been handed over to the competent authorities in the British Secret Intelligence Service. It was filled with pure Sandoz LSD-25. Not a single line related or referred to the Agency. Its an incredible story, said Eric. The first relates to the speed at which Dr. Olson exited the window of Room 1018A. We opened mail between Russia and the U.S. and closed it again and sent it on. Instead, the forensic pathologist, Dr. James Starrs, a Professor of Law and Forensic Science at the National Law Center at The George Washington University, found a deep bruise on Olsons forehead. Eliot writes: This is a moment like that, a moment when the circle closes. Gottlieb added that it didnt really matter that the documents were ruined, because it was all a waste anyway. Albarelli Jr. and John F. Kelly. A bit befuddled and bemused, the prosecutors turned their attention to David Berlin, who had investigated the C.I.A. On the day of his admission, my mother was pressured into consenting to ECT, and the treatment began just thirty-six hours later. At Learys suggestion, according to a former colleague, he took psilocybin again, this time with Aldous Huxley and Ginsberg. And that was my final interview in this deeply disturbing investigation. The world runs on bullshit. Congress enacted legislation providing $750,000 in compensation to the Olson family. As with the originalWashington Poststory that had led us in 1975 to recognize our fathereven though he was not namedthe fit between what the manual says about this technique and what is known about Frank Olsons death is stunningly precise. Teachers have influenced students; upperclassmen have influenced lower classmen. Calling this a trickle-down phenomenon, the authors seem to have correctly analyzed how LSD got around the country. To give the Olson family confidence that all available scientific and investigative means had been employed to bring the truth about Frank Olsons death under public and scientific scrutiny; 2. I must say, he messed up. But the notion of an LSD suicide provided at least a placeholder to quiet rumors and suspicions, even as it left room for the message that was being sent by security to all the personnel at Detrick: potential whistle-blowers will be dealt with harshly. And now, in 2004, this Artichoke-created cold turkey method of interrogation is back in business. In another entry, he proudly noted, Lashbrook at 81 Bedford StreetOwen Winkle and the LSD surprisecan wash. In recognition of the often bizarre behavior brought on by the drug, White assigned LSD the codename Stormy.. Or should we perhaps take the word disappeared in the meaning it has acquired in Latin America, where it is used as a past participle: i.e., the dissidents were disappeared? Not the man from the CIA who was in room 1018A with Olson when the 43-year-old biochemist and father of three crashed through a closed, shuttered window and tumbled to the cold sidewalk below. It also suggested that the perpetrator then play the horrified witness, and that drugs be used for the subjects preparation. The police officer was most courteous and pointed to my being somewhat over burdened, as he said, for a man of my years with the items I was lugging about with me. We were able to look at the body as if the incident had happened only yesterday. The size of the dose will depend upon whether the subject has been using narcotics regularly. THE PARENTS HOME DOCTOR (with lan D Hudson, Vincent Pippet) Even today, however, neither Murrays friends, his widow, nor even some historians believe this. As Professor Starrs had once summed up the mystery, When you pull on the Frank Olson case you feel that something very big is pulling back.. I believe the key to all this, he would later write, lies in the connection between the heart of covert operations, which consists in creating adequate cover stories, and the heart of the magicians art, which consists in being able to direct attention precisely to the place where the thing is not happeningAll curiosity was riveted on the startling disclosure that the CIA had unwittingly drugged a top scientist, but left no curiosity available for the question of, Oh yes, what about his death; you havent told us how he could have gotten out the window.[52]. A few years ago, its story never before told in detail would have seemed a macabre footnote to U.S. history. *Unfrocked double agents were also tortured there is no other word for it in so-called terminal medical experiments sponsored by the army, navy, and the CIA. Was this merely a historical coincidence, or did the Agency actually take steps to promote the illicit acid trade?, The tale of Ronald Stark, told by Lee and Shlain, may provide the connection between the CIA and the Left. After several conferences with the Assistant General Counsel of the Agency, and the Security Officer for TSS, the following was recommended: Mr. Mulholland should report all funds received from CD/TSS except for funds for travel expenses, but no attempt should be made to itemize deductions based on these funds. He killed himself nine days later by jumping out the window of New Yorks Starlet Hotel at 2:30 A.M. on Saturday, November 28. He did not call Lt-Col Ruwet, the chief of the Special Operations Division, right away. But the destination, whether it was San Francisco or the truth about what happened to Frank Olson, was still on the same map. The doubts raised by the incoherent Colby documents, and by the many other anomalies in the story, led us to have Frank Olsons body exhumed and a forensic investigation performed. Does it really threaten the fundamental nature of America?. After the family agreed not to sue the CIA, it was awarded a $750,000 settlement. 33.19 (ii) Dr. Olsons job is so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevance to the court on the issue of his duties. contacts with Dr. Olson and his family, which he described as intimate over a two and a half year period prior to Dr. Olsons death. tacitly acknowledged that it had committed a sin against the order that holds citizens in allegiance to their government. Dont let him in.. Itwas as if a long-lost MIA had at last been found and identified, but his family were not notified. She writes: [in acts of recognition, motivation and feeling] value may be adumbrated before the perception of forms is complete. Youre all a bunch of thespians! Olson shouted at his fellow acid trippers, then spent a long night wandering around babbling to himself. . Traveling with human skeletal remains in tow always leaves me, as Albert Camus said on another subject, strangely aching. I cannot leave the skull out of sight but at the same time I cannot treat it in away to generate suspicions. If Frank Olson had realized this, his son could now read his father's last words (''Just let me disappear'') as a cry for help. 2. This is confirmed by entries in the special passport that Olson used. Although the team did not say sobecause it could be only suppositionsomeone had struck Olson on the head with a hammer, smashed open the window, probably with the same hammer, and had then thrown Olson out. To examine and to ponder whether the tragedy of scientific experimentation with the lives and well-being of unwitting persons which marred and stigmatized this C.I.A. Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a comprehensive capability in this field of covert chemical and biological warfare gives us a thorough knowledge of the enemies theoretical potential, thus enabling us to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained in the use of these techniques as we are. . program, and that the story of a bad trip on LSD had been concocted either as a cover-up for his murder or as a cloak that concealed the dagger they had figuratively used to kill him. Unlike the rifle and machine gun, this is a short range weapon and since it fires pistol ammunition, much less powerful. A world traveler, he was equally at home on the New York City subway system or entertaining the Sultan of Sulu or the King of Romania. However, he had been under contract to prepare a manual, Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception, that applied the magicians art to covert activities, such as slipping drugs into drinks. Im so relieved to see you all dont have a gun. The night before, he told them, he had dreamed that the Olsons had shot him dead. He said Norm, you would be stunned by the techniques that they used., They made people talk! Cameron was engaged in secret experimental work for the CIA (details of that can be found in my book Journey into Madness). The plane crashed, and everyone on board was killed. Himwich, along with the Armys Dr. L. Wilson Greene, who first drew the CIAs attention to the wonders of LSD.. I wanted to see if there was a way to make it look like a natural occurrence. Despite the findings of a Senate committee headed by Ted Kennedy that U.S. mind-control research was a big silly failure, and even though Markswhose approach is fairly conservativeacknowledges that he found no record to prove it, the project may have indeed succeeded. John Mulholland died at age 71 on February 25, 1970 after a long illness in University Hospital, New York. Yet after exhuming and examining his remains a specific injury that went undetected at the time of his death turned out to be an important lead in re-evaluating the manner of the mans death. What little money he managed to scrape together he funneled back into the investigation. Discovered by Dr. Albert Hoffman on April 16, 1943, d-lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD as it would become known seemed to be a drug custom-made for the intelligence community. Assisted by his deputy Lashbrook, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the TSS Chemical Division, led the sessions in the lodges chestnut-paneled living room, opposite a roaring fire in a stone hearth. What, in fact, would these caretakers have done if this scientist privy to a whole network of secrets involving everything from terminal experiments on human subjects, assassination materials research, mind control experiments, the use of biological weapons in Korea what would they have done, whatcouldthey have done, if Olson had not disappeared below the ledge on the very day when he was scheduled to be placed inan open psychiatric hospital with no provision for maintaining security, and with open access to family and friends? Director of Study Abroad. He might have been the best they had available at the moment, and, also, the only guy with an adequate security clearance to handle what they wanted. 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