Frank Olson

Frank Rudolph Olson (July 17, 1910 - November 28, 1953) was a U.S. Army bacteriologist and CIA contractor who worked on biological weapons research at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. On November 18-19, 1953, Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA's Technical Services Division secretly dosed Olson with LSD at a CIA retreat. Nine days later, Olson fell from a tenth-floor window of the Hotel Statler in New York City and died on impact. The death was ruled a suicide and concealed for twenty-two years. A 1994 forensic examination found cranial injuries inconsistent with a fall, suggesting he was struck before going through the window. The circumstances of Olson's death have never been conclusively established, and a homicide investigation opened by the New York County District Attorney was closed without prosecution.¹

Fort Detrick and Biological Weapons Work

Olson was a scientist with a doctorate in bacteriology. He worked at Fort Detrick's Special Operations Division, which conducted research into biological and chemical agents for potential use in covert CIA operations. The Special Operations Division was the CIA's primary research site for biological assassination materials during the early Cold War - the same facility from which Gottlieb obtained the biological materials he carried to Congo in 1960 in connection with the Patrice Lumumba assassination plot.

Olson's specific responsibilities included research into agents capable of being aerosolized or delivered through food or drink, and he had participated in CIA operational programs abroad that exposed him to the agency's most extreme covert methods. By late 1953, according to his son Eric Olson's subsequent investigation, Frank Olson had developed serious reservations about the ethical dimensions of his work - particularly regarding CIA interrogation methods he had witnessed firsthand.¹

The Deep Creek Lake Retreat

On November 18-19, 1953, Gottlieb convened a working retreat for approximately ten Technical Services Staff officers and contractors at a cabin at Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. On the evening of November 19, after the day's meetings concluded, Gottlieb secretly added LSD to the bottle of Cointreau from which participants were drinking. He waited approximately twenty minutes before informing the group what he had done.

Olson had a severe adverse reaction. In the days following the retreat he exhibited paranoid ideation, anxiety, and what colleagues described as psychological collapse. He told his wife that he had "made a terrible mistake." CIA supervisors arranged for him to see Dr. Harold Abramson, a CIA-connected New York psychiatrist who was himself an MKULTRA contractor.

Gottlieb and CIA security officer Robert Lashbrook accompanied Olson to New York for the consultation. Olson's psychological state was deteriorating; Lashbrook was assigned to stay with him at the Hotel Statler in Midtown Manhattan. Plans were being made for Olson to undergo treatment at a CIA-affiliated psychiatric facility.¹

Death

On the night of November 28-29, 1953, Olson fell through a closed window - shade and glass - from the tenth floor of the Hotel Statler. Lashbrook was in the room. He called Abramson before calling the police. Olson died on impact on the street below.

The New York Police Department investigated briefly and ruled the death a suicide. The CIA informed Olson's family only that he had suffered a mental breakdown and fallen from a window. Director Allen Dulles was briefed on the circumstances, including the LSD dosing. The CIA prepared a classified account of the incident. No criminal investigation was pursued. The CIA subsequently paid Olson's family a private financial settlement of $750,000 in exchange for their silence.

The circumstances Lashbrook described to investigators over subsequent years shifted in minor respects. He stated he had been asleep when Olson fell. The window required significant force to penetrate - it was a standard hotel window with a latching mechanism and a roller shade, not easily exited accidentally in the dark.²

Disclosure and Forensic Investigation

In 1975, the Church Committee's investigation into CIA domestic activities surfaced a reference to an employee who had died after being unknowingly dosed with LSD. President Gerald Ford acknowledged the episode and the Olson family was invited to the White House. The CIA disclosed that Frank Olson was the unnamed employee and that he had been dosed with LSD nine days before his death. Congress passed a private bill compensating the family for $750,000 in 1976.

The family's subsequent private investigation, led by Olson's son Eric, raised the question of whether the death was suicide or murder. Eric Olson's theory was that his father had been murdered because his knowledge of CIA biological weapons programs and interrogation methods made him a security risk in his deteriorating psychological state.

In 1994, Eric Olson arranged the exhumation of his father's body. Forensic pathologist James Starrs of George Washington University led the examination. Starrs found a hematoma on the left side of Olson's skull and injuries to the cheekbone inconsistent with the fall - injuries suggesting a blow to the head prior to going through the window. Starrs classified the death as a homicide by unknown means.

The New York County District Attorney reopened the case as a potential homicide. Gottlieb and Lashbrook were interviewed; both maintained Olson had gone through the window voluntarily. The case was closed in 2002 without prosecution, in part because the chain of physical evidence was too degraded and the surviving witnesses' accounts too inconsistent to support a murder charge beyond reasonable doubt.

Gottlieb died in March 1999 while the investigation was still formally open. He was never charged in connection with Olson's death.²