Or murder? esolson@umn.edu. But it has admitted what might be called negligent manslaughter. 2001H.P. As America entered the 1950s, the world around John Mulholland was changing. Recent experience strongly suggests, moreover, that such top-secret work fosters ever more lurid schemes. The family home, a ranch house, is in a decayed state of suspended animation -- seemingly the same carpets, same couches, same dusty jar of Vaseline in the bathroom cabinet that were there the night Frank Olson died. For the next several months, he worked continuously on the MKULTRA project. Erics avocation had become a fixation that had eclipsed his career; having returned to the United States for good, he gave up his work as a clinical psychologist to focus full-time on his fathers case. For seven years, his father's bones have lain in a filing cabinet in James Starrs's office. .In Dr. Leviskys laboratory at York College the remains of Dr. Olsen were kept in a secure vault under lock and key while Jack Levisky and his assistant, Sherry Brown, worked to macerate (deflesh) the bones. However, he said it was recommended that he obtain treatment for some newly emergent behavioral problems he was having. (Visual text!) One of the drinks has been spiked. But records show that even CIA bosses were stymied as they tried to get the facts on the SO Division. Sargent said he knew that Frank Olson and Cameron knew each other and that Frank Olson also shared his (Sargants) view that some of the work Dr Gottlieb was funding Cameron to do through the Human Ecology Foundation (a CIAfront Organisation, was bordering on the criminal. Sources F.W. Eric never bought that argument. He was a true mentor to young Mulholland and instilled in him not only an appreciation of the art of magic but of its theory, history, and literature. His chemical division laboratory stored a vast array of poison pills and potions. Its hard to accept that your father didnt die because of suicide, nor did he die because of negligence after a drug experiment, he died because they killed him. If their demurrals are to be trusted, then this particular program constitutes one of the least cost-effective deployments of taxpayer dollars in the history of the U.S. government, which is rife with non-cost-effective dollar deployments. Nonetheless, Eric has constructed a narrative that is just as plausible, even more plausible, than the LSD suicide story. The next day, Lashbrook and Ruwet took Olson to the home of John Mulholland, a professional magician whom the TSS had hired to write a manual adapting the magicians art to covert activities. Gottlieb had tasked Mulholland with developing sleight-of-hand techniques that CIA agents could use to slip drugs into drinks. In it, the scenario promoted for contrived accident murder precisely fit like the key that would unlock the door the mystery of Frank Olson is death so much so that the only question remaining was whether his murder was the paradigm for the manual or whether the manual offered the blueprint for his death. . EXPERT: ZACH OLSEN. Seven years later [Harlot] was calling me to action. Others interviewed on the program disputed the likelihood of suicide from a closed window with the shade drawn, and in fact Olson has spoken calmly to his wife on the telephone a few hours before. Problems with the conventional story While he continued his performance schedule, he cleared his calendar of other commitments. I never signed any goddamn secrecy agreement.. Cold War research ran the gamut, from investigations of sleep deprivation to perfecting anthrax delivery systems. He played this role for 20 years, until his forced resignation and a two-year disappearance in Australia after CIA scandals began breaking out in 1973. When asked by the officers who this JM was, Lashbrook indicated he preferred not to identify him because of security reasons and the matter was pressed no further by the detectives.[48]. The remarkable example of Evan Thomas failure to see what he himself placed in front of his own eyes on page 212 ofThe Very Best Menis not the only case where an author has blinked when faced with the Frank Olson story. Dr. Abramson makes clear in the Colby documents that he wanted to be kept out of it. This is merely the first of a whole series of security problems that would have arisen. That visit was to John Mulholland. A Williams graduate, he tried his hand at journalism before joining the OSS. The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. 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. 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 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. Morganthau agreed, assigning the task to his cold case unit. Olson received his Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida, MBA from the Stetson University, and a BBA in marketing from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This is what we do. White thought they were all assholes. ENSLAVED (With Jeff Bricmont) It makes people think they know things that they dont know and it enables them to have a kind of superficial quasi-sophistication and cynicism which is just a thin layer beyond which theyre not cynical at all.. The biological weapons lab was founded in 1943. TURN BY THE WIN DOW (with Ronald Hutchinson) To me he was a Captain. (c) The Submachine Gun. Lt. Col. Ruwet reassured Olson that he had done nothing wrong at the retreat, and persuaded his employee to stay on. A half-hour later, Frank Olson boarded a flight to New York. 37.10 On Nov. 28, 1953, Olson allegedly dove through a closed and shaded 10th-floor hotel window in the middle of the night. Heres the gen. (Old OSS word for poop.) The only manifestation was that he could not sleep. The models represented the sexual positions considered, by the observant George White, to be the most effective in releasing a flow of information. Eric Olson Age 35. Also the impressive monument to Francis Scott Key, who wrote The Star Spangled Banner, stood tall and erect there. Eric Olson has visited Falconer several times, hoping his fathers old friend might one day confide a crucial secret in him. But the memoranda we obtained show that the real concern at the White House was that if we went to court we it might become necessary to disclose highly classified information. The memos show that the government would refuse to disclose such information. Tiny grooves guided the dose: You could time a death by the load [of toxin] you shot, he said. In Chapter Seven I chronicled some of the outrageous activities of the national security agencies during the 1950s. Your new story is not as much fun, I agreed. But the U.S. government has long denied using bioweapons, and most U.S. experts reject the charge. There he was briefly interviewed by a stenographer before returning to spend another day at the Statler Hotel. The total came to fifteen. The CIA hired prostitutes to pour LSD into their customers drinks. My father was a friend of his.. Marks, John. There was this Russian ship in the harbor. At least one person committed suicide after becoming an unwitting subject of a CIA LSD test, crashing through a highstory plate-glass window in a New York hotel as his Agency guardian watched. The story of Frank Olsons death now held two of the three elements that are required to be present to postulate a murder: motive, means, and opportunity. Thomas says that Olson confessed to Sargant that he had witnessed something terrible, possibly ''a terminal experiment'' on one or more of the expendables. 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]. And for quite a long time, possibly ever since my father began working at Detrick, the whole business about the monkey dying was a very delicate matter for him. Five days after the Oval Office session, the Olson family met with CIA Director William Colby at the spy agencys headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Eric spent a weekend at Normans house in Connecticut. My Russian being fluent, I confirmed my fathers story by interviewing his official hosts, his doctors, the organizers of the party, several attendees and a top Soviet official. And, Eric said, also, there were these two, Eric searched for a moment for the right word to describe the others. For months, the largest investigation in the history of American criminal justice has been underway. I could see a big stone fireplace in the living room of a wing of the house that hadnt been there in 1953. Supplies of the powerful hallucinogen were not even available on the U.S. market, and little was known about its effects on personality and behavior (see box, page 101). This reticence is partly due to the necessity of committing communications to paper. Why would he do that? Second it was not revealed: the name was not given. Salary in 2022. 18.03 Voice of Armand Pastore/Former hotel manager: For the next 23 years he would oversee magics most influential periodical. Frank Olson often uses the Air Force to test germ warfare in the field, for example on the Caribbean island of Antigua. The scenario presented in that manual dovetails not only with what we had learned from the forensic investigation, but also with what we had been told regarding the teaching of the Frank Olson case by the Mossads assassination training unit in Israel. And in 1961 he spoke at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Copenhagen, which, thanks to Leary and Huxleys presence, turned into a virtual psychoactive circus. He explained it thus: One of the difficulties of determining explicitly the effect of the drug itself is that the subject and the observer are both conscious of the fact that an experiment is being performed. They become mirrors of their culture. Now he was hearing voices, having delusions, and on his way to the crazy house. I recommend that you join a support group for children whose parents have committed suicide.. A socialist in his youth and a Buddhist as an adult, he was on a constant search for meaning in his life. Tried hard. To state this positively: all (covert techniques) described would be adaptations of acts usually performed for other purposes. and Fort Detrick scientists at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland on Nov. 19,1953, Sidney Gottlieb of the C.I.A. Albarelli, a writer-researcher with contacts among retired C.I.A. After a lengthy discussion, it was decided that Olson and Lashbrook would return to New York, and that Ruwet would go to Olsons home in Frederick, Maryland, to explain the situation to Olsons wife. AP All-Big Ten: Stroud, Campbell, Harbaugh take top honors. Only geniuses need applyhow did they ever miss you? On matters of more vital moment, such as what Lashbrooks statement or behavior might have been when confronted in room 1018A, his memory went blank and immovably so. September 17, 1996, Tuesday. The atomic bomb was a sinister threat, but more terrifying still were possible Soviet assaults on the mind and body from within through drugs and disease. Magnum, .270 Winchester, .30 106 p.s., 8 x 60 MM Magnum, 9.3 X 62 KK and others of this type. This firsthand information fixed the location of Dr. Olsons fall and enabled us to reverse his travel for reenactment from that point back to the room. In the years after World War II the United States was busy learning what it could from the two powers it had just defeatedinformation it would then employ in its new battle against the Soviet Union. As part of the police investigation Lashbrook was taken to the 14th Precinct station house, spending only a brief period there. Blowback: Americas Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War. Other high-ranking CIA officials mentioned prominently include Jame Angleton, C. P. Cabell and Stanley Lovell. They were all nuts. Even in the lost case, the assassin may accidentally be searched before the act and should not carry an incriminating device if any sort of lethal weapon can be improvised at or near the site. And two CIA employees were reprimanded by the director. It is contemplated the above would provide a contribution to the general efforts in the area of non-electrical means of communication. He was laying there looking at me, trying to speak to me, very earnest Probably the most unsettling, even unnerving moment in my conversation with Dr. Gottlieb occurred toward its close when he spontaneously sought to enlighten me on a matter of which I might not take due noticeso he thought. in 1975 and had brought Frank Olsons LSD dosing to public attention. Admiral Eric Thor Olson retired as the eight commander of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) on August 22, 2011. Within weeks, Morgenthau agreed with Huges findings and assigned the reopened case to his newly created cold-case unit headed by seasoned prosecutors Stephen Saracco and Daniel Bibb. My friend said he saw an analogy between my fathers murder and the order given to Francis Gary Powers to kill himself rather than allow himself to be captured by the enemy. Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton. His unconventional manner seems inconsistent with his job working for the army. Never was there any indication of pessimism.. Sometime around 1973, right before MK-ULTRA founder and, by then, CIA director Richard Helms hung up his trenchcoat and stepped down from the CIAs top post, he ordered the majority of secret MK-ULTRA documents destroyed due to a burgeoning paper problem. Among the eradicated material, Lee and Shlain report, were all existing copies of a classified CIA manual titledLSD: Some UnPsycbedelic Implications.. The event was chronicled in a lengthy article published in the. The experiment appears to have been conducted with Olsons consent and took place on Thursday, 19th November 1953. This contributed to a feeling that Frank Olson had not so much died as disappeared. Or was it for not notifying the Olson family when this story was finally emerging twenty-two years later, in 1975? Except in terroristic assassinations, it is desirable that the assassin be transient in the area. The CIA was fascinated by the idea of mind reading and thought transmittal. Decision and instructions should be confined to an absolute minimum of persons. But there are as yet insufficient data to confirm or deny its usefulness for eliciting true and accurate statements from subjects under its influence. Was it for not telling the truth to his family in 1953? Another time, I come back to the pad and the whole joint is littered with these pipe cleaners, Feldman went on. But now, having reached what we were now convinced was the truth about the murder, how could we ever learn the truth about the renewal of the coverup in 1975? Specific poisons, such as arsenic or strychnine, are effective but their possession or procurement is incriminating, and accurate dosage is problematical. Ive read them through twice, and about all I can do is summarize the impression that they leave on my mind. I have a speculation about it though. He was, however, closely associated with research projects supported indirectly by the CIA and had substantial experience with LSD. Three years ago the big rumor at TSS was that the Sovs had synthesized some magic drug. The other divisions there, created during and after World War II, focused on large-scale biological attack, said Walter, who completed a quadruple major at Mount St. Marys College in Emmittsburg and went to work at Fort Detrick in 1951. Buckley described both men as expert in hiding or destroying evidence. In the morning of March 27, 196 1, Paul Robeson was found in the bathroom of his Moscow hotel suite after having slashed his wrists with a razor blade following a wild party that had raged there the preceding night. PONTIFF (with Max MorganWitts) For almost half a century, his son Eric, a psychologist, has insisted his father as murdered on orders from the highest level. Though theNew Yorkerwriter did not make the connection between Fort Detrick, SOD, Frank Olson, and MK-NAOMI, he told of a number of monkeys who all died of a highly infectious virus known as Ebola that first appeared in 55 African villages in 1976, killing nine out of ten of its victims. I dont know if Ill ever get another bird or pet. Blows should be directed to the temple, the area just below and behind the ear, and the lower, rear portion of the skull. Japanese global apparel retailer UNIQLO introduces its UT Skater lineup through an exclusive Skater Event last February 22, 2023. The code name for this operation: Artichoke. In an elaborate 1965 attempt to assess how travelers might be used to spread smallpox, SO Division officers loosed BG in the air at Washington National Airport and at bus stations in Washington, Chicago and San Francisco, then tracked its movement using air samplers disguised as suitcases. 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