Frank Olson

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Rudolph Olson ( July 17, 1910 - November 28, 1953 in New York City ) was an American scientist and CIA employee. Shortly before he wanted to quit his job in 1953, he died of a fall from the window of a hotel. Whether it was suicide or murder is still controversial today.

Life

Olson studied biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , appeared in 1942 in the United States Army one, came a year later to Fort Detrick in the US state of Maryland , where he was first in the field of protective clothing and gas masks, and later in the area of biological weapons was active . He joined the newly established Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick in 1949 . There he was temporarily appointed head of the company in 1952.

death

On November 28, 1953, Olson died after falling from a window on the ninth floor of the Pennsylvania Hotel in Manhattan . In 1975, the President of the United States Commission to Investigate CIA Activities in the United States found documents showing that Olson had worked for MKULTRA . In this program, the CIA had conducted human experiments with LSD , among other things , to explore the possibilities of mind control. Olson had been given the drug without his knowledge nine days before he died. When he reacted extremely negatively, project leader Sidney Gottlieb had him taken to an allergist who worked for the CIA instead of a psychiatrist. This couldn't help Olson.

After this became known, the American government granted the family $ 750,000 in damages. In 1994, Olson's body was exhumed . The autopsy revealed evidence that he may have sustained the injuries before falling through the window. When Olson's sons petitioned the New York Public Prosecutor to retrial in 1996, they refused, but the cause of death was changed to "unknown". A lawsuit filed by the sons in 2012 was dismissed, citing government compensation.

Olson's death is the subject of various conspiracy theories and speculations, according to which he was allegedly murdered because he represented a security risk for the CIA with his inside knowledge. MKULTRA as well as Olson's work on banned biological weapons and their alleged use in the Korean War are cited as the background .

literature

  • HP Albarelli Jr .: A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments . TrineDay, 2008, ISBN 978-0-9777953-7-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seymour Hersh : Family Plans to Sue CIA Over Suicide in Drug Test. In: New York Times . July 10, 1975. Retrieved August 12, 2009 .
  2. ↑ Marlon Kuzmick: LSD . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara / Denver / London 2003, Volume 2, p. 448.
  3. ^ Paul G. Pierpaoli Jr .: Olson, Frank (1910-1952) . In: Jan Goldman (Ed.): The Central Intelligence Agency. An Encyclopedia of Covert Ops, Intelligence Gathering, and Spies . ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara / Denver / London 2015, p. 279 f.
  4. ^ Egmont R. Koch and Michael Wech : Code name Artichoke - The secret human experiments of the CIA . TV film, broadcast by WDR on August 12, 2002; HP Albarelli Jr .: A Terrible Mistake. The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments . TrineDay Publishers, Walterville 2009; Michael Barkun : A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. 2nd Edition. University of California Press, Berkeley 2013, p. 77.
personal data
SURNAME Olson, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Olson, Frank Rudolph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American scientist and CIA agent
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1910
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1953
Place of death new York