That was Eric Olsons conclusion as well. Edge weapons As I sat in Eric Olsons house and listened to his story I remembered that I had heard Sidney Gottliebs name mentioned before, in some other faraway context. The caller tried to speak to his friend, but this apparently startled the friend, who then started running and hurled himself through the window. University researchers would soon discover that, like Dr. Faustus, the legendary Renaissance magician who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power, they had signed a contract before reading the fine print. We heard it went all the way! For that matter to the contrary. It was officially referred to as Project MK/NAOMI, an adjunct to the larger CIA behavior modification program that within months became known as MK-ULTRA. [1]Mulholland letter to subscribers ofThe Sphinx, June 29, 1953, George Daily Collection, [2]Memorandum for Director, Central Intelligence,Two Extremely Sensitive Research Programs, Central Intelligence Agency, April 3, 1953, authors files, [4]Memorandum for Deputy Director (Administration), Project MKULTRA Extremely Sensitive Research and Development Program,Central Intelligence Agency, April 13, 1953, authors files, [5]Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, US Official Poisoner Dies,CounterPunch, Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, March 1999, [6]Stewart Alsop,The Center: The Anatomy of Power in Washington, London, Hodder & Stroughton, 1978, [7]John Northern Hilliard,Greater Magic, Kaufman and Greenburg, 1994, page 1095, [8]Mulholland invoice, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 4-30, April 13, 1953, authors files, [9]Mulholland letter to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 4-29, April 20, 1953, authors files, [10]Memorandum for the Record,Project MKULTRA, Subproject 4, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 4-28, May 4, 1953, authors files, [12]Letter to John Mulholland, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 4-28, May 5, 1953, authors files, [13]Mulholland letter to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Central Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA document 4-2, May 11, 1953, authors files, [14]James B. Alfredson and George L. Daily, Jr.,A Bibliography of Conjuring Periodicals in English: 1791-1983,Magicana for Collectors, York, PA, 1986. Armand Pastore is the manager of the hotel. Reading this passage at the kitchen table in Frederick, Eric realized that the word he had been looking for all his life was not ''fallen'' or ''jumped'' but ''dropped.'' This contributed to a feeling that Frank Olson had not so much died as disappeared. The commission found all three practices unsavory, but reserved its harshest language for the drug tests. Lashbrook, the other occupant of the room, was found to be sitting in the bathroom on the toilet with his head in his hands. Two days before his death he allegedly leaves his room in the middle of the night, wanders the streets alone, throws away wallet, including all of his money and his identification. It was never really said, except that probably by the middle 60s it became obvious, Pannier said. Spin Magazine,March 1994. Theyre not going to fall for this.. Among the stipulations was a commitment to total secrecy. But he did not explain what he meant any further. Would he be unable to resist revealing secrets? Instead of being under the care of a qualified psychiatrist, Olson was taken to Harold Abramson, an allergist with a C.I.A. Thats the content of this White House memo: 49.21 Eric Olson. In 1955, the CIA concluded that tests in a controlled environment-at the agency and in hospitals and prisons-were no longer sufficient, and, to make sense, they had to be conducted in normal social situations., All along, Gottlieb had been trying to persuade his CIA superiors that experiments on unwitting subjects were necessary. He said, that he was going to leave. He says the evidence he has gathered over the years shows that Frank Olson didnt suffer a nervous breakdown, as the family initially was told, and didnt commit suicide because he had had a negative drug experience, as they learned in the 1970s. Once in the Congo, the scientist carefully instructed CIA operatives in how to apply the toxin to Lumumbas toothbrush and food. We talked about a week, ten days, after he came back. After studying your remarkable book more carefully it occurs to me to ask you about one of the most mysterious details in the documents I received from William Colby in 1975. Saracco and Bibb did manage to meet with Ruwet in Frederick, Maryland, as reported by H.P. He did confirm night manager Armond Pastores statement that Olson was still breathing as he lay on the sidewalk. Basically, he said, this is a story about a guy who had a simple moral code and a nave view of the world. The same narrow focus on value-free science that led Nazi concentration camp doctors to commit atrocities encouraged many of these well-meaning scholars to cross ethical lines. Before doing so, the three men made another stop. The bosses demanded a dart so fine that it could penetrate clothing and skin unnoticed, then dissolve, leaving no trace in an autopsy. In the United States, Senator Joseph McCarthys anti-Communist crusade was raging. quietly dropped the case (the New York D.A.s office has declined to comment, citing grand jury secrecy). He had regularly visited Alice Olson, shared a drink with her, become a trusted friend of the children. Although it is the standard practice to keep the relatives out of the autopsy room I made an exception in this case due to my noticing the uncanny resemblance between Eric in life and his father in death. It is related to that part of Special Operations which was said to be was one of Gottleibs specialities: creating means (darts, toxins etc.) Such a revelation was to be avoided at all costs, the internal correspondence stated. It is known also that in 1953, he was under contract with the C.I.A. He said he was concerned about the psychological changes in Frank Olson. but there was blood everywhere: blood from his nose, blood from his eyes, blood from his ears, there was a bone protruding from his left arm, sticking straight out. Eric is second from the right. The information will be collected principally from the previous studies made by Mr. Mulholland in connection with various problems he has considered. Consequently, we knew those results would likely be a long time coming. The family didnt believe this story, as Olson had never seemed depressed until after the retreat at Deep Creek Lodge. SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4, 1977 He was a rock-em, sock-em cop not overly carried away with playing spook, according to a friend who knew him at the time. For the next several months, he worked continuously on the MKULTRA project. Oh, I said, just a skull session with an assistant medical examiner.. When the agency comes under scrutiny, it simply changes the name of the program and continues unabated. She had to yell over the sound of the digger. They immediately began to run down leads, and were surprised to learn that the C.I.A. Sargant told me he believed Frank Olson had witnessed murder being committed with the various drugs he had prepared. Then he began to tell his wife that he had made terrible mistakes. 4. Charles Baronian, a retired Army weapons official, recalls a demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He couldnt understand what happened. (Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling,Vol. For America it was lurid, said Eric, and exciting.. In the discussion that ensued, however, it became clear that the time required to travel from New York to Washington by train and then to come all the way to Rockville would make the arrival very late at night. ARTICHOKE had involved extreme methods of interrogation and an attempt to develop a way to produce complete amnesia in questioned subjects or in agents who had seen too much and could no longer be trusted. Dr. Frank Olson arrived in Frankfurt on June 12, 1952, from Hendon Military Airport near London. Might it contain any indication of the secret anthrax research his father was doing after the war? Despite this new evidence, federal prosecutors refused to pursue the inquiry. For years, Feldman had ducked reporters. As a teenager, Eric was a patriotic member of that community, where he became an Eagle Scout in the base-sponsored troop. In fact the 1970s version of the Frank Olson story was a story that everyone could love. An effective technique has been devised for the use of a pair of sub-machine gunners, by which a room contailning as many as a dozen subjectgs can be purifico in about twenty seconds with little or no risk to the gunners. I have wondered why Eric spent the evening of the day he had his fathers body exhumed telling his friend the story of Harolds Club Or Bust. He died before the ambulance arrived. But if Frank Olson was murdered, then part of the plan would naturally be a cover-up. The essential point of assassination is the death of the subject. It cites independent writer and investigator Hank Albarelli: I think there was an experiment of some sort at Deep Creek Lodge. Sidney says, Stop the car. He pulls out a dart gun and shoots this big eucalyptus tree with a dart. The only thing Isbell was guilty of was getting money from the CIA., It is true that the climate of the times was different. 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. We then turned to a detailed discussion of the contact that Dr. Gibson had had with one of my fathers caretakers, the caretaker who apparently was Robert Lashbrook though Gibson does not remember the name. ), Chapter 80 of: Everyones worst nightmare had always been of someones flipping out and running amok, and spilling all the family secrets. Moonlighting for the CIA, with funds disbursed by Gottlieb, White rented two adjoining apartment safe houses at 81 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village. We joked about it., He said, Theyre trying to find out what kind of guy I am. Most alarming of all, Regis does not mention that this disappearance below the ledge was, at the very least, extremely convenient for Olsons caretakers, charged as they were with the security of a high level scientist doing top secret work and now (according to the standard version of the story) completely out of control. According to this interpretation, Olsons fatal fall was the result of a bad trip, a tragic, yet accidental, consequence of the CIAs Cold War wet dream of developing a magical brainwashing elixir. It is now clear that, tinder controlled conditions, LSD is a relatively harmless drug. According to informed sources, newly emerging evidence in the Olson case revolves around Harold Blauers death and a number of previously unrevealed links between the CIA, Fort Detricks Special Operations Division, or SOD, Olsons place of work and the New York City Medical Examiners Office. When Eric had his fathers body exhumed in 1994, the pathologist, Dr James Starrs, found a hole in Franks head that he concluded came from the butt of a gun and not a fall from a 10th floor window. That was the key conclusion of the Pentagons Committee on Biological Warfare in a secret October 1948 report on covert biowarfare. And when we were leaving he said, I guess you guys want to see Disneyland, right? Bogle, a brilliant scientist, had told friends that he was about to go to the US to work on scientific research of great military importance. He was too late, however, to do the same for William Colby, the CIA chief who apologised for Olsons death. Army harvested victims blood to boost anthrax, Then there was the fact that previous run-ins with drug cops had usually resulted in criminal prosecutions. But the sensational notion of LSD administered by the CIA served wonderfully to conceal this gap. 34.24 He wasnt fundamentally a military guy. Conceivably, this might be an unusually merciful agent of warfare: temporarily nullifying the individuals effectiveness, but not permanently damaging him., With all this in mind, the CIA decided to broaden ARTICHOKE. On June 13, experiments are conducted with Patient No. If the work sounds sinister today, there were doubters at the time, too. Mulholland summed up his suggestions as to what this covert guide would have to contain in a letter that he sent to Gottlieb the following week. Being located close to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where a fierce four-day battle was waged in 1863 that turned the tide of the American Civil War, he is fully apprized of local efforts in historical preservation. Christmas 1947. 44.19 After joining the CIA in 1951, he quickly proved himself to be an ardent Cold War patriot. After three years there, he went home to Utah and completed a degree in bacteriology. But the new autopsy findings were certainly enough for a New York public prosecutor, Stephen Saracco, to win the right for a grand jury to begin hearing the evidence he had uncovered. (Like everyone known to be directly involved, Lashbrook is now dead.). Further, the entire anterior (front) portion from head to toe of the flesh of Frank Olsons remains was devoid of lacerations, save those to be expected from the many compound fractures, and from that in the upper thoracic region where a laceration had been sutured up, probably during embalming. It looked as if he had left in a hurry: the lights and the radio were still on, his computer was still running, and a half finished glass of wine was on the table. We feel our family has been violated by the CIA in two ways, Eric declared. Just like every year. His ongoing meetings with the TSS staff accelerated. Why people are visiting the . JOURNEY INTO MADNESS My deepest thanks to him. Bremen, Germany Director William Colby to cooperate with them. 16.22 Vice President Single Family, Multifamily. (See this link for a. Was this conversation still relating to the Olson case? His ability to keep this part of his life secret for so long may well have been his greatest magic trick. 24.23 August 1, 2004. A scanning electron microscope, coupled with energy dispersive X-ray, disclosed the presence of a number of elements, one of which was silicon in a rather high concentration. He confronted his fathers close-mouthed colleagues. Taking shape as it did in the early 1950s, when the Cold War was the central concern of U.S. foreign policy, the defensive research was expanded almost overnight to encompass offensive work as well-the testing and development of drugs such as LSD that the CIA could use for its interrogations of enemy personnel. Hearings Before a Subcommittee on Government Operations. U.S. Government Printing Office, July 22, 23, 29, 31 and August 1, 1975. He pointedly explained that in 1953 the Russian menace was quite palpable and that it was potentially worsened by the Russians having cached many kilograms of LSD from the Sandoz laboratory in Switzerland. He asked her if any calls had been made from Frank Olsons room. The book may have had at least a trace of validity: Something in the book convinced Oswalds mother that the author was personally acquainted with her son. He said that the intelligence information released by the Eisenhower Library had been declassified at the request of the subcommittee, and that it showed that the Eisenhower Administration was trying to do what it could to get the prisoners back short of war. In 1995 we were contacted byDr. Robert Gibson. 37.49 Only geniuses need applyhow did they ever miss you? A most uncommon request, but one to which I acceded. Among MKULTRA papers that later came to light, Lee and Shlain write, were, CIA documents describing experiments in sensory deprivation, sleep teaching, ESP, subliminal projection, electronic brain stimulation, and many other methods that might have applications for behavior modification. The CIA report offers no more details about Olsons doings on that Friday. Although bioengineering today could produce more virulent pathogens, nothing has changed in the most challenging part of covert biological attack: delivering germs so that they infect people, Patrick said. [41]Fidel Castro was an ongoing focus of Gottliebs chemists from the LSD the Agency hoped to spray in the Cuban leaders radio booth to the botulinum pill-laden pencil they crafted to assassinate him. An expert in biochemistry and aerobiology, Olsons specialty was delivering such deadly diseases in sprays and aerosol emulsions. On August 9, 2002, I went in the company of team members Jack Frost and Jack Levisky to Mount Olivet Cemetery on Market Street in Frederick, Maryland, for Dr. Olsons reburial beside his wife Alice. (It does not disclose whether the CIA ever learned if the two Russians were double agents or not.). His suspicions aroused, Pastore spoke to the hotels phone operator, asking if any calls had come from room 1018A. We were contacted by George White, Jones said in an interview. I have long thought that accounts of my fathers death are very like H.C. Andersens story The Emperors New Clothes, Olson said. 604 E Geneseo St. Lafayette CO 80026. According to George Belk, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, Feldman quit the drug agency following a probe by the internal security division. I was beginning to sense that I was approaching a fog-laden back alley in a London byway. Through Thomas, Eric learned that during a trip to London in the summer of 1953 his father had apparently confided in William Sargant, a consultant psychiatrist who advised British intelligence on brainwashing techniques. Assassination is an extreme measure not normally used in clandestine operations. The Frank Olson case, it seems, is far from being closed, even 50 years later. Natalie Boyles said Friday that her husband, Charles M. Boyles, Williams son, had never heard of such a thing. agents in Florida, he said, and some of them had told him they knew who had killed Frank Olson in Room 1018A that night. Cameron was engaged in secret experimental work for the CIA (details of that can be found in my book Journey into Madness). financing to experiment with LSD, and his sole exercise of therapeutic attention was to prescribe Nembutal and bourbon to help Olson sleep. Acid Dreams. I find it remarkable that the notion of a file being accidentally missed finds its way into this account, especially when one considers how many things about the death of Frank Olson the CIA has claimed were accidents. To wit: in 1953 the Olson family was told that the death of Frank Olson was an accident; when other materials were being shredded in 1973 the file on Frank Olson was accidentally not destroyed; when the Rockefeller Commission investigators were gathering materials at the CIA an Agency secretary accidentally gave them the Olson file, which was not supposed to be released (this explanation provided to the Olson family bySeymour Hersh); when the Rockefeller Commission came into possession of the Olson file in 1975 they accidentally forgot to notify the Olson family that the story of the death of their husband-father, kept secret for twenty-two years, was about to come to light; the CIA also accidentally failed to notify the Olson family when they came to know that the Olson story was about to be anonymously disseminated both in the Rockefeller Commissions report and in the press; the story of Frank Olsons death as it was described in the notoriously missing file which was accidentally not destroyed was that Olson had been accidentally kept on a high floor of a hotel during his stay in New York for psychiatric consultation because of an accidental failure of judgment in which the severity of his disturbance was underestimated; Sidney Gottlieb told the Olson family in 1984 that he had had no idea that LSD could cause the sort of effects it caused in Olsons case, and that in that sense the drugging of Olson was a mistake and an accident.. 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