Monday, August 2, 2004

National Security Homicide Frank Olson was a research scientist in the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick (MD) in the early 1950's. The division developed, among other Cold War goodies, biological weapons and tools for covert assassinations. On November 28, 1953, while staying at a hotel after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital for depression, he crashed through the window of his room and plunged to his death. The government claims that Frank Olson committed suicide after being given LSD surreptitiously in a CIA mind-control experiment. In 1975, after the CIA LSD experiment was discovered, White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld persuaded President Gerald Ford to offer an apology to the Olson family. His family believes that he was a victim of a "national security homicide" -- that he was assassinated by government agents after he began having grave doubts about his research. Frank's son Eric Olson has devoted much of his life to uncovering the truth about his father, and he has developed a compelling case, based largely on circumstantial evidence. The Baltimore Sun reports on this fascinating story. Postscript: The Sun also had an associated article today on Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division. It's a nice piece from which to get a sense of some of PKD's influences. Some highlights: One of the few survivors is Wallace Pannier, 76, who remembers standing in a Frederick County field watching sheep shot with what the Army called a "nondiscernible bioinoculator" -- a dart gun. The bosses demanded a dart so fine that it could penetrate clothing and skin unnoticed, then dissolve, leaving no trace in an autopsy. "If the sheep jumped, that meant people were going to jump, too," said Pannier, now living a quiet life tending his flowers and shrubs in Frederick. Once perfected, the dart gun astonished those who saw it in action. Charles Baronian, a retired Army weapons official, recalls a demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "Twenty-five seconds after it was shot, the sheep just fell to the ground," said Baronian, 73. "It didn't bleat. It didn't move. It just fell dead. You couldn't help but be impressed." [snip] The veterans still slip into biowarrior-speak, in which "good" means good-and-lethal. "It made a real nice aerosol," they'll say, or "That would give you real good coverage." [snip] The 1975 Senate investigation revealed that the SO Division supplied biological materials for several planned CIA attacks, none of which were successful. In 1960, the CIA's main contact with the SO Division, Sidney Gottlieb, carried a tube of toxin-laced toothpaste to Africa in a plot to kill Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. But the CIA station chief balked and pitched the poison into a river, a congressional investigation later revealed. Records suggest, though they do not prove, that the SO Division also supplied germs for CIA schemes to kill or sicken Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and that it came up with the poisoned handkerchief that the agency's drolly-named Health Alteration Committee sent to Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qasim in 1963. (He survived.) 1:57:15 AM    comment [] Putting the "F" back in Freedom! The creators of South Park have a new movie coming out before the election: Team America World Police. (Be sure to check out the trailer.) According to Drudge, the White House isn't pleased. "I really do not think terrorism is funny, and I would suggest PARAMOUNT give respect to those fighting and sacrificing to keep America safe," a senior Bush adviser told the DRUDGE REPORT this weekend. [snip] "This is just unconscionable. Not funny. And I believe it makes fun of everyone in law enforcement... and in the armed services who work tirelessly to keep us safe from harm." To quote Orwell's O'Brien: There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except for the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. 12:56:38 AM    comment [] Newsweak Poll Picking up the thread from Atrios, I checked my local paper, the Baltimore Sun, to see how it reported the Newsweek poll. As Atrios and others have noted, since the poll was conducted on Thursday and Friday of this week, many respondents were polled prior to Kerry's big speech. Thus the poll is not a good indicator of a small post-convention bounce, as Drudge et al. claimed. Sure enough, the news was page one, upper right column. And here's the headline: Poll finds Kerry has slim lead over Bush Massachusetts senator reaps small boost from convention 'Must be disappointed,' Bush aide says At least David Greene, the author, explained the nature of the poll later in the article: The Newsweek poll was published with a story saying that Kerry had received the smallest bounce of any candidate after his convention in the poll's history. But, the poll was taken on Thursday and Friday, meaning that only some of the 1,010 participants were surveyed after Kerry's nationally televised acceptance speech. Polls from other news organizations are to be released in coming days, likely producing a fuller picture of the race. However, the explanation hardly jibes with the headline of the story (a page-one, upper right column story). 12:42:03 AM    comment []

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