News-Info-Alerts

Re: Cold War Scientist's Death Still a Mystery

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 09, 2002

"Family closing door on Cold War scientist's mysterious death in 1953

By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer

FREDERICK, Maryland - Relatives of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA ( news - web sites) mind-control experiment say they are closing their investigation into his 1953 death.


Family members have long believed the government killed Frank R. Olson and said Thursday they have substantiated their theory, even though they believe those who are responsible will never stand trial.

"We've got to get on with life here and it's time to rebury our father," Eric Olson, 57, said at a news conference in the family's back yard.

Frank Olson's remains, exhumed in 1994 as part of the family's investigation, were to be buried Friday beside his wife, Alice.

The CIA denied Thursday that its agents killed Olson by throwing him out a New York hotel window on Nov. 28, 1953, to keep him from revealing secrets about the torture of Cold War prisoners and biological weapons used in the Korean War.

"That's absolutely untrue and totally without foundation," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said. He added that the CIA activities had been investigated by the 1975 Rockefeller Commission and two congressional committees.

The family originally was told Olson, a microbiologist the U.S. Army's biological weapons research center had fallen or jumped.

In 1975, a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller released a report on CIA abuses that included a reference to an Army scientist who had jumped from a New York hotel days after being slipped LSD in 1953.

Family members threatened to sue but President Gerald Ford invited the family to the White House, assuring them they would be given all the government's information. CIA Director William Colby handed over documents and the family accepted a dlrs 750,000 settlement to avert a lawsuit.

But the documents didn't answer all the family's questions and their investigation continued.

On Thursday, Eric Olson distributed copies of a July 11, 1975, memorandum from Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then both Ford White House aides.

Cheney wrote that any lawsuit or legislative hearings stemming from the incident would raise "the possibility that it might be necessary to disclose highly classified national security information."

Another memo, dated Aug. 4, 1975, from White House counsel Roderick Hills to Cheney, urged a settlement with the family.

A Cheney spokeswoman said Thursday she was looking into the matter. Rumsfeld's press office did not return telephone calls.

On the Net: The Frank Olson Project: http://www.frankolsonproject.org

Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press"