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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Frank Olson.md

@@ -22,15 +22,19 @@ Frank Rudolph Olson (July 17, 1910 - November 28, 1953) was a [[United States Ar
 
 ### Fort Detrick and Biological Weapons Work
 
-Olson was a scientist with a doctorate in bacteriology. He worked at Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division, which conducted research into biological and chemical agents for potential use in covert CIA operations. The Special Operations Division was the CIA's primary research site for biological assassination materials during the early Cold War - the same facility from which [[Sidney Gottlieb|Gottlieb]] obtained the biological materials he carried to [[Congo]] in 1960 in connection with the [[Patrice Lumumba]] assassination plot.
+Olson was a scientist with a doctorate in bacteriology. He worked at Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division, which conducted research into biological and chemical agents for potential use in covert CIA operations. The Special Operations Division was the CIA's primary research site for biological assassination materials during the early Cold War - the same facility from which Gottlieb obtained the biological materials he carried to [[Congo]] in 1960 in connection with the [[Patrice Lumumba]] assassination plot.
 
 Olson's specific responsibilities included research into agents capable of being aerosolized or delivered through food or drink, and he had participated in CIA operational programs abroad that exposed him to the agency's most extreme covert methods. By late 1953, according to his son Eric Olson's subsequent investigation, Frank Olson had developed serious reservations about the ethical dimensions of his work - particularly regarding CIA interrogation methods he had witnessed firsthand.[^1]
 
+### Biography and the 1953 European Trip
+
+Olson came to Fort Detrick in 1943 as one of the original officers in the U.S. biological warfare program, took a medical discharge over an ulcer condition late in [[World War II]], and stayed on as a civilian, joining the [[Special Operations Division]] when it formed in 1950 and serving briefly as its acting chief in 1952-53. He had participated in [[Operation Harness]], a 1949-50 joint U.S.-British test of biological dispersal in the Caribbean, and from 1950 made classified trips under diplomatic passport to [[Camp King]], the U.S. Army interrogation center at Oberursel in West Germany. In the spring and summer of 1953 he toured biological-warfare and interrogation facilities in the United Kingdom, [[Paris]], [[Norway]], and Camp King; at [[Porton Down]] he confided his distress to British psychiatrist [[William Sargant]], who reported that Olson was "deeply disturbed over what he had seen" and showed "symptoms of not wanting to keep secret what he had witnessed." He returned home in a state of moral crisis and told his wife [[Alice Olson]] he meant to resign.[^3]
+
 ### The Deep Creek Lake Retreat
 
 On November 18-19, 1953, Gottlieb convened a working retreat for approximately ten Technical Services Staff officers and contractors at a cabin at Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. On the evening of November 19, after the day's meetings concluded, Gottlieb secretly added LSD to the bottle of Cointreau from which participants were drinking. He waited approximately twenty minutes before informing the group what he had done.
 
-Olson had a severe adverse reaction. In the days following the retreat he exhibited paranoid ideation, anxiety, and what colleagues described as psychological collapse. He told his wife that he had "made a terrible mistake." CIA supervisors arranged for him to see Dr. Harold Abramson, a CIA-connected New York psychiatrist who was himself an MKULTRA contractor.
+Those present included SOD chief [[Vincent Ruwet]], [[Benjamin Wilson]], and [[John Schwab]]. Olson had a severe adverse reaction; Wilson recalled that he "was psychotic ... He thought someone was playing tricks on him," and Ruwet called the episode "the most frightening experience I ever had or hope to have." In the days following the retreat Olson exhibited paranoid ideation, anxiety, and what colleagues described as psychological collapse. He told his wife that he had "made a terrible mistake." CIA supervisors arranged for him to see Dr. Harold Abramson, a CIA-connected New York psychiatrist who was himself an MKULTRA contractor.
 
 Gottlieb and CIA security officer Robert Lashbrook accompanied Olson to New York for the consultation. Olson's psychological state was deteriorating; Lashbrook was assigned to stay with him at the Hotel Statler in Midtown Manhattan. Plans were being made for Olson to undergo treatment at a CIA-affiliated psychiatric facility.[^1]
 
@@ -54,7 +58,10 @@ The New York County District Attorney reopened the case as a potential homicide.
 
 Gottlieb died in March 1999 while the investigation was still formally open. He was never charged in connection with Olson's death.[^2]
 
+Eric Olson's decades-long investigation became the basis of Errol Morris's 2017 documentary series [[Wormwood]]; Morris's on-record interview with [[Seymour Hersh]] elicited Hersh's statement that he held information from a source he could not burn and had never published.[^3]
+
 ### Footnotes
 
 [^1]: Kinzer, Stephen. *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.* Henry Holt and Company, 2019. Marks, John. *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control.* Times Books, 1979.
-[^2]: Albarelli, H.P. *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.* Trine Day, 2009 (the most comprehensive investigation of Olson's death, including extensive primary document analysis). Starrs, James E. Forensic examination report, Olson exhumation, 1994, filed with New York County District Attorney.
+[^2]: Albarelli, H.P. *A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments.* Trine Day, 2009 (the most comprehensive investigation of Olson's death, including extensive primary document analysis). Starrs, James E. Forensic examination report, Olson exhumation, 1994, filed with New York County District Attorney.
+[^3]: John D. Marks, *The Search for the Manchurian Candidate*. Times Books, 1979, Chapter 5; Stephen Kinzer, *Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control*. Henry Holt, 2019; "There's Something Rotten in Denmark: Frank Olson and the Macabre Fate of a CIA Whistleblower," *CovertAction Magazine*, November 28, 2023.