NationStates Jolt Archive

I just finished watching the Discovery Channel episode of "Conspiracy Files", "CIA Mind Control".
About 55 or 56+ minutes into the episode, they were showing specific CIA documents regarding the official public stances on Frank Olson's death, and the signatories on one document had both Dick Cheney AND Donald Rumsfeld's name on it, on the upper left-hand corner. I know this is usually The Red Arrow's territory, but he doesn't seem to frequent this place much anymore, so i guess i should post it.

I thought that was a bit odd - and i wonder what other posters thought of this. I'll supply more if i find more (just starting).

Admittedly, it gives new meaning to the term "Bush Administration Kool-Aid."
:eek:

Frank Olson, a United States Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment and allegedly committed suicide a week later following a severe psychotic episode. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson's recovery was supposedly asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson jumped through the window to fall ten stories to his death.

Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to his knowledge of the sometimes-lethal interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in Europe, used on Cold War prisoners. Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries suggested Olson had been knocked unconscious before being thrown out of the window.

The CIA's own internal investigation, by contrast, claimed Gottlieb had conducted the experiment with Olson's prior knowledge, although neither Olson nor the other men taking part in the experiment were informed the exact nature of the drug until some 20 minutes after its ingestion. The report further suggested that Gottlieb was nonetheless due a reprimand, as he had failed to take into account suicidal tendencies Olson had been diagnosed as suffering from which might well have been exacerbated by the LSD.

Rumsfield? He was 21 in 1953. Going by the short bio I looked up, he was in college at the time, which was right before he joined the Navy in '54. I can't see that he would have been high enough up the food chain at CIA for him to be signing off on a program like MK. Cheney I can see, age-wise.

Rumsfield? He was 21 in 1953. Going by the short bio I looked up, he was in college at the time, which was right before he joined the Navy in '54. I can't see that he would have been high enough up the food chain at CIA for him to be signing off on a program like MK. Cheney I can see, age-wise.
I thought that was a little strange too - if i get more i'll post. I'm irritating other posters right now ...

Here's a little more, from one site. I don't trust just one, so i'm gonna keep digging:

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/olson2.htm

The fact that Frank Olson had died shortly after being given LSD in a CIA experiment came out in 1975 as a consequence of President Ford's Rockefeller Commission investigation into the CIA's domestic activities. Further investigation was called for, but in a White House memo advisers to President Ford stated that this would risk revealing state secrets (probably meaning, in part, the use by the U.S. of germ warfare in Korea); further investigation was suppressed and the whole matter covered up. The names of those White House advisers were Dick Cheney, current U.S. Vice-President, and Donald Rumsfeld, current Secretary of Defense. They have never been questioned as to what they knew about Olson's death.
-
A California history professor, Kathryn Olmstead, has discovered documents at the Gerald Ford library which were written by Cheney and Rumsfeld.


They show how far the White House went to conceal information about Olson’s death — and his role in preparing anthrax and other biological weapons. ...
Cheney and Rumsfeld were given the task of covering up the details of Frank Olson’s death. At the time, Rumsfeld was White House Chief of Staff to President Gerald Ford. Dick Cheney was a senior White House assistant.

The documents uncovered by Professor Olmstead include one that states "Dr Olson’s job was so sensitive that it is highly unlikely that we would submit relevant evidence".

In another memo, Cheney acknowledges that "the Olson lawyers will seek to explore all the circumstances of Dr Olson’s employment, as well as those concerning his death. In any trial, it may become apparent that we are concealing evidence for national security reasons and any settlement or judgement reached thereafter could be perceived as money paid to cover up the activities of the CIA".

Frank Olson’s family received US$750,000 to settle their claims against the US government.

— US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld Linked to "Murder of CIA Scientist"
http://www.gordonthomas.ie/162.html

---
Hmmm.

And just a smidge more ....

When the Ford administration finally came clean, they promised they'd revealed everything. Yet key officials, including White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, pushed to continue to conceal information. "The family has learned that the Ford administration was keeping information from the family," the Baltimore Sun reported in 2002. "Among those who advocated keeping quiet were Dick Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the vice president and defense secretary, the Olsons learned from memos and other papers received last year from the Gerald R. Ford Library."
Note: Baltimore Sun, 2002. *hints*

So, Duntscruwithus, it would appear that Rumsfeld was a ripe age for subterfuge when this issue came up, indeed.

Also, some of the material i've come across metions The Manchurian Candidate, the remake (not Ol' Blue Eyes version), and i hadn't been thinking along those lines when i was watching Denzel.

Last update of the night ....
the Baltimore Sun article is archived, but far enough back that i'd have to spend a bit to get it. :(

One time 'round the block ...

Olson's son Eric says his father's conscience was troubled by awareness of Nazi-style CIA experiments on human subjects.

...
a memo from Dick Cheney, who was a White House assistant at the time, to Donald Rumsfeld, the chief of staff, on July 11, 1975. That memo warned that a lawsuit by Olson's family might make it necessary "to disclose highly classified national-security information.''
the administration rolled out the red carpet for the Olson family. They were granted a meeting with the president Gerald Ford, who apologized for the death and promised full disclosure. Then they met with CIA Director William Colby, who gave them a file of documents comprising the CIA investigation into Olson's death.

Those documents confirmed other details disclosed in a 1975 commission of inquiry into CIA abuses --which had initially alerted the family.
..
The family received $750,000 in return for waiving their right to further proceedings against the government. Rumsfeld and Cheney had helped resolve the case to the administration's satisfaction.
..
In July
1975, the family held a news conference in their backyard saying they felt "violated by the CIA.'' In August 2002, they were back in the same yard again.

To have been so grievously misled by the agencies of government --not once-- but twice, must cause an anguish hard for any outsider to truly comprehend.

For their part in that second lie, Rumsfeld and Cheney have much to regret. Cheney was but an aide, but Rumsfeld was Chief of Staff at the time.


So is everybody nicey with these two now that Bush is the obvious town oaf?
:mad: