ARTICHOKE

There are things in our history that most Americans don’t know because they haven’t been told, or what they have been told is not true. Unfortunately, some of the things are so disturbing that many of us would prefer to keep it that way. Such is the case of the death of Frank Olson.

On Monday, November 23, 1953, Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, told his boss he wanted to quit his job. The following Saturday Olson fell to his death from a tenth floor window of a hotel in New York City.

Government officials told his widow and three young children that Mr. Olson jumped or fell from the window as a result of a nervous breakdown. That story remained “the truth” for 22 years.

In 1975 the Rockefeller Commission’s examination of CIA domestic operations was reported in the Washington Post. The article said that a civilian employee of the Army had unknowingly taken LSD as part of a CIA test. The Post quoted the commission saying that the subject “developed serious side effects and was sent to New York with a CIA escort for psychiatric treatment. Several days later, he jumped from a tenth-floor window of his room and died as a result.” More