Frank Olson
Army biological warfare scientist given LSD by the CIA
- Born
- 1910
- Died
- November 28, 1953, New York City
- Employer
- US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, Camp (later Fort) Detrick, Maryland
- Known for
- Death after being covertly dosed with LSD in an MKUltra test
- Settlement
- US government paid his family $750,000
Army bacteriologist who fell to his death in 1953, nine days after CIA officers secretly gave him LSD; how he died is still disputed.
What is Frank Olson known for?
Frank Olson was a bacteriologist who worked on biological warfare for the US Army at Camp Detrick, Maryland. On November 19, 1953, at a retreat near Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, he and colleagues were given LSD in their drinks without their knowledge, in a test arranged by CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb.
Olson became distressed in the days that followed. On November 28, 1953, he fell from a tenth-floor window of the Hotel Statler in New York City. At the 1977 Senate hearing, CIA Director Stansfield Turner described it as a leap to his death about a week after he unwittingly took LSD.
The CIA's role became public through the Rockefeller Commission in 1975. President Gerald Ford apologized to the family, and the government paid them $750,000. His family has long argued that he was killed, and a 1994 re-examination of his body reported injuries they said were consistent with that view. The official record still describes a death following the drug test; the question remains disputed.
His death after secret LSD dosing was examined at the 1977 Senate MKUltra hearing.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeMKUltra: The 1977 Senate Hearing
- PersonSidney Gottlieb
- PersonStansfield Turner
Sources
- Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 'Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification' (joint hearing, August 3, 1977)Primary text
- Wikipedia, 'Frank Olson'Reference
Pictures on profile pages are drawn placeholders, not likenesses. Public-domain portraits and photographs will replace them.