Ted Kennedy - Unsolved Mysteries TV - Anthrax War 2009 - Spotlight: Code Name: Artichoke 2002 - Wormwood 2017 -
The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an ‘extensive testing and experimentation’ program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens ‘at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign’. Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to ‘unwitting subjects in social situations’. At least one death, that of Dr Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers. Ted Kennedy, address to Senate 1977
Why was Frank Olson killed? ... Frank Olson worked at Fort Detrick, Maryland ... Two weeks before his death Frank went to a three-day conference with some of his colleagues and came home a changed man. Vincent Ruwet, Frank’s boss, told the Olsons he believed that Frank was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Just before Thanksgiving he took Frank to New York for treatment. While in New York Frank shared a hotel room with Dr Robert Lashbrook, a CIA scientist. Nearly a week passed before Frank’s family finally heard from him. Frank Olson was dead at the age of forty-three. Investigators determined that he had either jumped or fallen to his death. The night manager of the hotel also found Frank’s death suspicious. Unsolved Mysteries
Years later a government commission was formed to investigate past abuses committed by the CIA. The official report made mention of a scientist who had plunged to his death from a hotel room ten days after being dosed with LSD. That scientist turned out to be Frank Olson. Over the next year and a half the Olson family received a formal apology from President Ford and a cheque from the government for $750,000. ibid.
The laced drinks were served to eight of the ten scientists present. Some of them including Frank Olson were not warned about the test. Within an hour the LSD took effect. When [Sid] Gottlieb told the group their drinks had been spiked with LSD, Frank Olson became very angry. Then Frank made his fatal trip to New York supposedly suffering from a nervous breakdown. ibid.
It came through the mail just weeks after 9/11. Noon terrorist attacks, first in Florida, then New York and Washington. Anthrax. It spread fear and panic through the nation. Anthrax War, 2009
The US bio-warfare programme was born here [Fort Detrick] during World War II ... The spores of weaponised anthrax are processed into a fine aerosolled powder. ibid.
In the wake of the anthrax letters an important lead seems to have been overlooked. The Baltimore Sun reported US army scientists in Utah had been making weapons-grade anthrax and shipping it to Fort Detrick. The anthrax spores were virtually identical to those mailed to Congress. ibid.
Fort Detrick scientist Frank Olson was a liaison between the two facilities [Portland Down and Fort Detrick]. On November 28th 1953 Olson fell thirteen stories from a New York City hotel room. Was his death part of a pattern of mysterious deaths of bio-weapon scientists, including that of Anthrax Letter suspect Bruce Ivins also of Fort Detrick? Did all three scientists [inc David Kelly] know too much? ibid.
A CIA agent who used to run these covert operations who may have been murdered because of it. In 1953 Frank Olson plunged to his death from a 13th floor hotel window in New York City. The CIA man who was in the room with Olson said he jumped. An autopsy demanded 40 years later by Olson’s son conclude he was pushed. Spotlight: Code Name: Artichoke, 2002
It has been eight years since the exhumation. Eric Olson is still searching for the reasons behind his father’s death. ibid.
Olson senior was one of the chemists responsible for the biological weapons centre the US Army ran nearby. ibid.
When Frank Olson was later debriefed about the LSD experiment he knew immediately what it meant: they had interrogated him with Artichoke techniques. ibid.
And the name of the star is called Wormwood. Wormwood I II III IV V V VI opening scene, Olson reads Revelations, 2017
I was told, Your father has had an accident. And he fell or jumped out of the window. ibid. son
1975: When the Rockefeller report on the CIA came out there was in it a grisly story of the CIA experiment on an unwitting civilian who was given LSD. ibid. news
A massive illegal domestic spying operation by the CIA. ibid. Seymour Hersh, The New York Times
This special operations group which is kind of subset within [Fort] Detrick. ibid. son
Russians accuse US of readying germ war. ibid. newspaper
Ford offers apology to Olson family. ibid.
And says, I’m leaving. I’m quitting. He goes to New York Tuesday morning. Late Friday night, early Saturday morning, he’s dead. ibid. son
What we call the Colby documents; then they said it’s everything there is on the whole matter. ibid. attorney
They want me to see a psychiatrist. ibid. Olson to wife
The government was so eager to shut this down. ibid. son
CIA linked to attempt to kill Lumumba. ibid. newspaper
You’re in a room. You can’t jump. You have to dive … If he dives out the window, that’s an amazing stroke of luck on their part. ibid. son
Back to Washington and back to New York again. ibid.
He was arguably in the most dangerous spot in the whole Cold War. ibid.
He’s with Lashbook. This key person. CIA. ibid. attorney
It’s even harder to sustain that cover story. ibid. son
Your husband’s death disturbed me greatly. ibid. hotel deputy manager, letter to Mrs Olson
Now modern technology and old-fashioned science have convinced a team of forensic pathologists that Olson may have been murdered. ibid. news
There were no lacerations … They found this impact on the skull above one of the eyes which they said could only have come from a blow in the room. ibid. son
If he had been given it, I don’t think it played any causal role in what subsequently happened. ibid.
That such a baloney story could fly at all. ibid.
Deaths Weave Sinister Design in Washington. ibid.
Frank was viewed as a dissident. ibid. Seymour Hersh
I needed truth a long time ago. ibid. son
Wormwood. It’s all bitter. ibid.