In the fifties, he worked in drug enforcement. Those scientists in the Western intelligence community who supported the idea of developing brain-washing programmes had two gurusDr Douglas Ewan Cameron, a Glasgow-born psychiatrist, and Dr. Sydney The Gimp Gottlieb, the CIAs top expert on brainwashing. Among the things his father left behind, Eric Olson found some home movies and slides. If desired, I am prepared to start work on this project immediately. The men heading the CIA effort that Mulholland had been asked to join certainly fit this picture. White House attorney Roderick Hills wrote to White House Deputy Staff Director Dick Cheney (yes, that Dick Cheney) stating, Dr. For example: we intend to investigate the development of a chemical material which causes a reversible non-toxic aberrant mental state, the specific nature of which can be reasonably well predicted for each individual. To be able to now invest energy back into his professional career hopefully, its not too late; he is in his late 50s. His report was most abbreviated since the death had been no posted, (reported out based only on an external examination of Olsons dead body). Well, Gottlieb is like that except hes cosmic in scope, interested in everything. According to the CIA file, Olson saw Abramson for the first time later that day. He and CIA officer Robert Lashbrook decided to spend the night at the Statler and head south the next morning. Return to Search Results. To find an answer we have to go back to the fifties when the two great ideologies of the 20th century, communism and capitalism, were locked in a battle to the death and no act no matter how morally shocking was ruled out in the struggle for victory. Several top-level communist agents were being interrogated in Berlin at the time. Albarelli Jr. and John Kelly. But you cant quite make out what it is.. Summer 1953. Everest, confident as God. When other-people who ingested the drug reported similar effects, the chemical became something of a pharmaceutical curiosity: a mysterious drug searching for something to cure. Ruwet indicated to investigators that he had appeared to be all mixed up. He and Lashbrook then took Olson to New York. 2001H.P. Trained as a biochemist, he had been employed since 1943 in the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was associated with a CIA secret research unit known at the time as MK-ULTRA, and came to Britain frequently between 1950-53 to work at the British Microbiological Research Establishment (MRE) at Porton Down. On that same day, Gottlieb died from a heart attack. Its an incredible story, said Eric. This was the breakthrough the agency had been awaiting for three years; now it had access to all the LSD money could buy. In 1994, an Associated Press reporter discovered the typewritten memo, which quoted an earlier, hand-written note forwarded to Detrick in 1975 by a person described only as retired Army and retired DAC (Army shorthand for Department of the Army Civilian). Detective James Ward initially referred to the case as a possible homocide in his report. Whites credentials were impeccable: A former crime reporter on the West Coast before he joined the narcotics bureau, White had soon become one of the top international undercover agents under Harry Anslinger, the grandfather of Americas war on drugs. 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. He espied a window shade sticking out through one of the windows in the upper floors a window that was broken. But nobody bothered to notify our family that this story was being released. He did not call Lt-Col Ruwet, the chief of the Special Operations Division, right away. 34.52 Voice of Prof. James Starrs/George Washington University: In this report, Albarelli and Kelly disclose new evidence they have uncovered in this case. Reporters heard that family patriarch Frank Olson, ostensibly an Army scientist, had committed suicide in 1953. We now know that this story begins long before the meeting atDeep Creek LakeNovember 1953 where the CIA conducted what it later called a drug experiment. It begins with concerns about Frank Olsons commitment to CIA programs, especially after he witnessed terminal interrogations in Germany in the summer of 1953. But the CIA station chief balked and pitched the poison into a river, a congressional investigation later revealed. Was the big secret that Olson was a CIA employee? For that matter to the contrary. Jean Gardner Esq., stood by for her legal insights, along with three photographers, including Gerry Richards, a retired chief of the photography section at the FBI and a former student of mine in the MFS curriculum at George Washington University. They were not C.I.A. In order to prevent worse things from happening. We were problem-solving.. As it happened, some hairline fractures, undetected on the radiographs, were discovered only after inspection of the skeletorized remains. In trying to distract my fatherthey were taking a risk: the same techniques that ultimately might quiet him could also, if he detected what was going on, increase his anxiety and fear.[64]. You cant go out with a colleague for a drink and get a little intimate without being told The Story. I hope that my speculations, and they are nothing more than that, may be of some interest and modest help to you. When Dr Sargant learned of Frank Olsons death I recall him telling me it came in a priority message from the British Embassy in Washington Sargant came to the immediate conclusion that Olson could only have been murdered. 39:03 Voice of Eric Olson: However forthcoming Lashbrook was, the Technical Services Staff still tried to keep the details of its operations from the scrutiny of others even within the Agency itself. This is why, Eric has learnt, his father was recruited to Artichoke. This horrendous omission turns out to be a key to the whole story. With Olsons death, the culture of despair had come full circle. The documents may only deepen the mystery over the fate of Americans still considered missing from the Korean War. That manual clearly suggested disguising a murder as a suicide by dropping the subject from a high window or roof. Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist DEADLY PERFUME Two agents were dispatched to Switzerland with a black bag containing $240,000. Feldman had acquired three or four to set himself up with cover.. Not even Superman has been pictured soaring off into the blue in that fashion. Was it suicide? His deputy, Richard Helms, had a different personality but similar roots. The remaining four were CIA officers from the Technical Services Staff (TSS), commonly known inside the Agency as the dirty tricks department. The official purpose of the gathering was to discuss MK-NOAMI, a top-secret joint program of the SOD and TSS to develop germ weapons to infect enemy spies in the field. Olson was told that he had swallowed LSD about 20 minutes after drinking some Cointreau. On June 11, 1975, startling new details turned up on Alice Olsons front doorstep, in the morning edition of The Washington Post. This would be the best way to preserve security. It was a basic hotel room with two double beds, small and rather spare in its furnishings. And why, when he went out the window, had Lashbrook failed to summon help or even notify the hotels staff? On the left side of the body, there was an indication of hitting something hard with the bottom of the foot. This is no longer a happy, feelgood story, Eric said, and I dont like it better than anyone else does. Historys Biggest Mysteries, Coverups, and Cabals, Revised, updated, and expanded. Why hadnt he called downstairs to the desk to find out about his friends condition? They also had schizophrenia-inducing chemicals to free their agents from all moral concerns. Yet Jack Frost thought that if Olson had been hit with a blunt force object in the room, he would expect to find some indication on the skulls surface. Gottlieb was constantly experimenting to see the real world impact of his drugs. Like other leading psychologists of his generation, he was a beneficiary of the Rockefeller Foundations efforts to promote psychology in public policy. The second quote comes from Tommy Worsley, the genius Volvo mechanic who kept Erics car running during the long years of digging. A significant portion of the human population within selected target areas may be killed or incapacitated., Setting an imaginative tone for what would follow, the report listed potential targets: ventilating systems, subway systems, water supply systems stamps, envelopes, money, biologicals and cosmetics contamination of food and beverages.. At the time of your husbands death, I was the assistant night manager at the Hotel Statler in New York and was at his side almost immediately after his fall. After the survey, the Engineers returned with their maps of the plots they had surveyed. He excelled in his studies and eventually earned a doctoral degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. The Olsons had been considering legal action, but White House attorneys advised the family against it, telling them, Eric Olson recalls, that the law was not on our side. Instead, the government lawyers promised that the White House would support a private bill in Congress to pay the family a settlement. He told Powelson that he had worked for a rather obscure department of the government (that would like to remain obscure)., That obscure department. Was he gonna be caught on this? 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. . One question is why Lashbrook (or Abramson if that was who the caller was) would have called to arrange hospitalization, possibly to begin as early as that same night, if the intention was to kill the patient. If the subject had to be controlled, blows to the temple or behind the ear were said to be effective means of silencing him. More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Resume I always wanted to be a gangster, Feldman told me. Remembered by his colleagues for his forcefulness as well as for his marked stuttering while excited, Gottlieb came closest to the image of the sinister scientist in the whole strange cast of agency characters. Paris, London, Stockholm, Frank will later write on the packaging. The plane crashed and no one survived. Once perfected, the dart gun astonished those who saw it in action. They wanted George to arrange to hit Fidel Castro, Feldman said. Additionally, documents reveal: Marrazzi indicated in his trip report that while he was in New York he prevailed on one of the New York City Medical Examiners with whom he was well acquainted to place all the records (regarding Blauer) in a confidential file in the medical examiners office. As Ive tried to tell you it conceptually rests on the idea that there are two vectors in this story and they only intersect in one place.. I was strongly identifying with him, I loved him. The trip to New York was not to manage and contain his incipient psychosis. Olson reportedly had the worst trip. Unable to broach the subject of their fathers death with their mother, the Olson children were left to grapple with a legacy of shame and pain. I have long thought that accounts of my fathers death are very like H.C. Andersens story The Emperors New Clothes, Olson said. I watched them, and then I watched a home movie that a friend of Erics had shot on June 2nd 1994, the day Eric had his fathers body exhumed. Despite its many inconsistencies, the CIA account of what happened during the early morning hours of November 28, 1953 would become the official story of Frank Olsons death: It was an unfortunate suicide triggered by a small dose of Lycergic Acid Diethylamide LSD secretly administered to Olson in a mind-control experiment gone awry. Historys Biggest Mysteries, Coverups, and they are nothing more than that, be. 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