Poisoner in Chief

by Stephen Kinzer

  Roselli said he would prefer something “nice and clean”: U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots, p. 80.

  President Eisenhower ordered Castro “sawed off”: Jim Rasenberger, The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs (New York: Scribner, 2011), p. 83.

  He did not use … “bad words”: Central Intelligence Agency, “Memorandum for the Record, Subject: Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro,” May 22, 1967, in Fabian Escalante (Introduction), CIA Targets Fidel: The Secret Assassination Report (Melbourne: Ocean, 2002), p. 34.

  Since it would entail making poison: Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Pocket, 1979), p. 184.

  The first grew from Gottlieb’s long fascination with LSD: U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots, p. 72.

  Gottlieb’s team then came up with: Ibid.

  “did contaminate a full box of fifty cigars”: Escalante, CIA Targets Fidel, p. 37.

  “Sidney Gottlieb of TSD claims to remember”: Ibid., p. 30.

  The poisoned Cohiba cigars: Ibid., p. 37.

  These included, according to a Senate investigation: U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots, p. 71.

  Samuel Halpern, who served at the top level: Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (Boston: Back Bay, 1998), p. 268.

  “There was a flat-out effort ordered by the White House”: Central Intelligence Agency, “Summary of Facts: Investigation of CIA Involvement in Plans to Assassinate Foreign Leaders,” p. 54, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0005/7324009.pdf.

  “None of the shells that might conceivably be found”: Escalante, CIA Targets Fidel, p. 77.

  “TSD bought a diving suit”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 275.

  “four possible approaches were considered”: Escalante, CIA Targets Fidel, p. 38.

  During 1961 and 1962, intermediaries working for the CIA: Ibid., pp. 55–57.

  “a pencil designed as a concealment device”: Ibid., p. 40.

  “a ballpoint pen which had a hypodermic needle inside”: CIA, “Summary of Facts,” p. 63.

  “designed to be so fine”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 275.

  “we had been operating a goddamn Murder Inc.”: Evan Thomas, “The Real Cover-Up,” Newsweek, November 21, 1993.

  11. We Must Always Remember to Thank the CIA

  “Capture green bug for future reference”: Jefferson Morley, “Clare Boothe Luce’s Acid Test,” Washington Post, October 22, 1997.

  “Harold A. Abramson of the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory”: “Medicine: Artificial Psychoses,” Time, December 19, 1955, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,861768-2,00.html.

  LSD had become “all the rage”: Morley, “Clare Boothe Luce’s Acid Test.”

  got her LSD from Sidney Cohen: Online Archives of California, Sidney Cohen Collection, 1910–1987, https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0d5nf1w1/entire_text/.

  The first celebrity to speak publicly about LSD: Stevens, Storming Heaven, pp. 64–65; Geoffrey Wansell, Haunted Idol: The Story of the Real Cary Grant (New York: William Morrow, 1984), pp. 232–33.

  “After my series came out”: Bob Gaines, “LSD: Hollywood’s Status Symbol Drug,” Cosmopolitan, November 1963.

  “Researchers were growing lax in controlling the drug”: Steven J. Novak, “LSD before Leary: Sidney Cohen’s Critique of 1950s Psychedelic Research,” Isis 88, no. 1 (March 1997), https://www.jstor.org/stable/235827?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

  Among the students who took LSD: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, pp. 119–26; Stevens, Storming Heaven, pp. 226–51; Wolfe, “10 Real Victims.”

  “turned into a twenty-four-hour psychedelic party”: Lauren Marie Dickens, “Driving Further into the Counterculture: Ken Kesey On and Off the Bus in the 1960s,” Master of Arts thesis, Middle Tennessee State University, 2015, http://jewlscholar.mtsu.edu/bitstream/handle/mtsu/4737/Dickens_mtsu_0170N_10481.pdf?sequence=1.

  The music of the Grateful Dead: Steven Gimbel, ed., The Grateful Dead and Philosophy: Getting High-Minded About Love and Haight (Chicago: Open Court, 2007), pp. 52–54.

  Hunter was another of the psychedelic voyagers: Acid Dreams, p. 143.

  “He’d been making some money”: Dennis McNally, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003), pp. 42–43.

  Later he said the experiments seemed aimed: David Browne, “Robert Hunter on Grateful Dead’s Early Days, Wild Tours, ‘Sacred’ Songs,” Rolling Stone, March 9, 2015, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robert-hunter-on-grateful-deads-early-days-wild-tours-sacred-songs-37978/.

  “Sit back picture yourself swooping”: McNally, Long Strange Trip, p. 42.

  “Psychiatrists who had worked for the US Navy”: John L. Potash, Drugs as Weapons against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac, and Other Leftists (Waterville, OR: Trine Day, 2015), pp. 58–59.

  “He volunteered to become an experimental subject”: Steve Silberman, “The Plot to Turn On the World: The Leary/Ginsberg Acid Conspiracy,” NeuroTribes, April 21, 2011, https://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/04/21/the-plot-to-turn-on-the-world-the-learyginsberg-acid-conspiracy/.

  During his first sessions, Ginsberg listened: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, p. 59.

  “healthy personal adventure”: Don McNeill, “Why Leading Beatnik Poet Allen Ginsberg Was a Crusader for Legalizing LSD,” Alternet, March 8, 2017, https://www.alternet.org/books/why-leading-beatnik-poet-allen-ginsberg-was-crusader-legalizing-lsd.

  “It was above all and without question”: “Playboy Interview: Timothy Leary,” Playboy, September 1966, https://archive.org/details/playboylearyinte00playrich.

  “the most dangerous man in America”: Ari Shapiro, “Nixon’s Manhunt for the High Priest of LSD in ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America,’” NPR, January 5, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/05/575392333/nixons-manhunt-for-the-high-priest-of-lsd-in-the-most-dangerous-man-in-america.

  “early use was among small groups of intellectuals”: Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” p. 129.

  “The authors seem to have correctly analyzed”: Ibid.

  “The United States government was in a way responsible”: Gimbel, Grateful Dead and Philosophy, p. 53.

  “Am I, Allen Ginsberg, the product”: Allen Ginsberg, Poems All Over the Place (Cherry Valley, NY: Cherry Valley Editions, 1978), p. 53.

  “It was being done to make people insane”: David Bianculli, “Ken Kesey on Misconceptions of the Counterculture,” NPR, August 12, 2011, https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=139259106.

  “The LSD movement was started by the CIA”: Lee and Shlain, Acid Dreams, p. xx.

  “We must always remember to thank the CIA”: “Playboy Interview: John Lennon,” Playboy, January 1981, http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbjypb.int3.html.

  Under a staircase in a faded Moscow apartment block: Jeremy Duns, Dead Drop: The True Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold War’s Most Dangerous Operation (London: Simon and Schuster, 2013), p. 169; Wallace et al., Spycraft, pp. 25–34.

  Some post-mortems on Penkovsky’s loss: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 37.

  McCone began by shaking up the team: Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” p. 210; Jeffrey T. Richelson, The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), pp. 42–46.

  “TSD leadership had mountains to climb”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 58.

  The complex was spacious: U.S. Department of the Interior, “National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: E Street Complex (Office of Strategic Services and Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters),” p. 33, https://osssociety.org/pdfs/oss_nr_final_to_hpo.pdf.

  He recognized that technology was becoming steadily more important: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 54.

  Are Soviet diplomats in a Latin American count
ry: Ibid., pp. 197–98.

  Technical Services invented a “subminiature” camera: Ibid., pp. 89–90.

  Does a spy say he will take risks: Eyeglasses displayed at International Spy Museum, Washington, DC, 2017.

  “a special research study of handwriting analysis”: Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” pp. 182–83.

  “Graphologists will categorize a number of handwriting samples”: Central Intelligence Agency, “Memorandum for the Record,” December 16, 1958, pp. 83–91, https://ia601202.us.archive.org/33/items/DOC_0000017485/DOC_0000017485.pdf.

  “[Redacted] has conducted a detailed study”: Sidney Gottlieb, “Memorandum for the Record,” April 18, 1958, http://www.all.net/journal/deception/MKULTRA/64.224.212.103/Mkultra/subproject.html.

  “As of 1960 no effective knockout pill”: Central Intelligence Agency, Report of Inspection of MKULTRA/TSD, https://cryptome.org/mkultra-0003.htm.

  “The possibility of creating a ‘Manchurian Candidate’”: Streatfeild, Brainwash, p. 169.

  They managed to persuade McCone: Powers, Man Who Kept the Secrets, pp. 436–37.

  Earman submitted his report: J. S. Earman, “Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence,” July 26, 1963, https://cryptome.org/mkultra-0003.htm.

  “It has become increasingly obvious”: Hilary Evans and Robert E. Bartholomew, Outbreak!: The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior (Charlottesville, VA: Anomalist, 2015), p. 411.

  “I remember him saying that the Soviets were doing”: Author’s interview with retired CIA officer “HD.”

  12. Let This Die with Us

  “The way we thought about our children’s upbringing”: Margaret Gottlieb, “Autobiographical Essays.”

  “I was a smart kid”: Author’s interview with “Elizabeth.”

  Silent CIA officers watched intently: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, p. 145; Wallace et al., Spycraft, pp. 200–201.

  “Listen to those two guys”: Charlotte Edwardes, “CIA Recruited Cat to Bug Russians,” Telegraph, November 4, 2001, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1361462/CIA-recruited-cat-to-bug-Russians.html.

  “Technically the audio system worked”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 201.

  “The work done on this problem over the years”: Edwardes, “CIA Recruited Cat.”

  “to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior”: General Counsel of the Department of Defense, “Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense,” September 20, 1977, http://www.unwittingvictim.com/DeclassifiedHumanExperimentationMKULTRAAndMore.pdf.

  “that clubfooted Jew”: Author’s interview with retired CIA officer “LD.”

  Gottlieb hesitated: Regis, Biology of Doom, pp. 213–17.

  Nathan Gordon later testified that he ordered this operation himself: Nicholas M. Horrock, “A Mass Poison, Linked to C.I.A., Reported Found at Army Base,” New York Times, September 9, 1975; U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 52–91, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/94intelligence_activities_I.pdf.

  Gottlieb’s men and women provided them: Wallace et al., Spycraft, pp. 74, 285, 393, 418.

  Gottlieb’s “concealment engineers” also provided: Christopher Moran, Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), p. 125; Christopher Moran, “Turning Against the CIA: Whistleblowers During the ‘Time of Troubles,’” History: The Journal of the Historical Association, March 27, 2015, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-229X.12099; Wallace et al., Spycraft, pp. 195–96.

  “Could you do that?”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 112.

  “thirty to forty missions a day”: Ibid., p. 295.

  Engineers from Technical Services designed: Ibid., pp. 279–84.

  “Throughout 1968, Dr. Gottlieb continued to preside”: Thomas, Journey into Madness, pp. 399–400.

  “The Israelis spent three months in 1968 trying to transform”: Ronen Bergman, “How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine,” New York Times Magazine, January 28, 2018.

  At lunchtime he snacked on food he brought from home: Thomas, Secrets and Lies, pp. 29, 34–35.

  “It sounds hokey, but he had a touch”: Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 83.

  Gottlieb’s Technical Services Division had prepared false identity papers: Richelson, Wizards of Langley, p. 164; Harry Rositzke, CIA’s Secret Operations: Espionage, Counterespionage, and Covert Action (Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Press, 1977), pp. 220–21.

  “Early in 1973, Dr. Gottlieb, then C/TSD”: Central Intelligence Agency, “Memorandum for Director, OTS,” August 19, 1975, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005444840.pdf.

  “Over my stated objections, the MK-ULTRA files were destroyed”: Bowart, Operation Mind Control, p. 108.

  Around the same time, Gottlieb directed his secretary: Albarelli, Terrible Mistake, pp. 451–52; U.S. District Court 2nd Circuit, “Deposition of Sidney Gottlieb,” September 22, 1995, p. 623; Marks, Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” pp. 219–20; Powers, Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 348.

  “Schlesinger came on strong”: William Colby with Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), p. 329.

  One afternoon in April, Schlesinger telephoned: Central Intelligence Agency History Staff Oral History Program, “Tough, Unconventional, and Effective: An Interview with Former DDCI John N. McMahon,” https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001407025.pdf; Richelson, Wizards of Langley, p. 164; U.S. Congress, Select Committee on Intelligence, Nomination of John N. McMahon (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), p. 18; Wallace et al., Spycraft, p. 460.

  Sidney Gottlieb retired from the CIA: U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, p. 208.

  Before departing he was awarded one of the Agency’s highest honors: Scott C. Monje, The Central Intelligence Agency: A Documentary History (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008), pp. 133–38.

  13. Some of Our People Were Out of Control in Those Days

  “I am determined that the law shall be respected”: Monje, Central Intelligence Agency, p. 174.

  “He was a Roman Catholic”: Ranelagh, Agency, pp. 554, 557.

  “In January 1973, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb”: Albarelli, Terrible Mistake, p. 468.

  “The Central Intelligence Agency, directly violating its charter”: Seymour Hersh, “Huge CIA Operation Reported in US Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, December 22, 1974.

  “Unnecessary disclosures would almost certainly result”: Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald Ford (Harper and Row, 1979), p. 224.

  “beset by continuing threats to our national security”: Gerald R. Ford, “Statement Announcing Establishment of a Commission on CIA Activities within the United States,” January 4, 1975, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/announcing-establishment-commission-cia-activities-within-the-united-states.

  “Frankly, we are in a mess”: Jussi M. Hanhimaki and Odd Arne Westad, eds.,The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 477.

  “A lot of dead cats will come out”: White House, Memorandum of Conversation, January 4, 1975, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0314/1552899.pdf.

  “Bill, do you really have to present all this material”: Colby, Honorable Men, p. 400.

  The Rockefeller Commission’s report: Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, June 1975, p. 227, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0005/1561495.pdf.

  One was headlined SUICIDE REVEALED: Thomas O’Toole, “Suicide Revealed,” Washington Post, June 11, 1975.

  “Have you seen today’s Washington Post?”: Albarelli, Terrible Mistake, p. 478.

  “I
t was amazing”: Crazy Rulers of the World: Episode 3, The Psychic Foot-Soldiers (film), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQKTMjApnkI&t=1029s.

  “This must be the most goddamn incurious family”: Wormwood (film), https://www.netflix.com/title/80059446.

  “Since 1953, we have struggled to understand”: Eric Olson et al., “August 8, 2002, Press Conference, Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson,” http://stevenwarran-backstage.blogspot.com/2014/11/august-8-2002-press-conference.html.

  “to look at the whole matter”: Albarelli, Terrible Mistake, p. 500.

  “I don’t really know what I should say”: “Former CIA Agent Tells of Olson’s Last Days,” News (Frederick, MD), https://newspaperarchive.com/news-jul-18-1975-p-1/.

  On the same day the Post ran that interview: Horrock, “Destruction of LSD Data.”

  “President Ford’s chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld”: Maureen Farrell, “Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Manchurian Candidate,” May 18, 2004, https://www.scribd.com/document/61308378/Dick-Cheney-Donald-Rumsfeld-and-the-Manchurian-Candidate; Thomas, “US Vice President.”

  “With deepest sincerity and conviction”: Edward C. Schmultz files, “Olson, Frank, Meeting with Olson’s Family 7/22/75,” Gerald Ford Presidential Library.

  “Some of our people were out of control in those days”: Albarelli, Terrible Mistake, p. 511.

  He wrote that he was fifty-five years old: U.S. Civil Service Commission, “Security Investigation Data for Sensitive Position—Sidney Gottlieb,” released by National Personnel Records Center, May 15, 2016.

  Gottlieb spent seven months at the Drug Enforcement Administration: Horrock, “Destruction of LSD Data.”

  “Sid retired from government at an early age”: Margaret Gottlieb, “Autobiographical Essays.”

  “I never wanted to go back to India”: Ibid.

  In a secluded glen a few miles from the White House: Lenzner, The Investigator, 2013), pp. 190–92.

  “Look, Sid, the goal here is to keep you out of the newspapers”: Ibid., p. 196.

  “Because of his expertise in poisons”: Ibid., pp. 194–95.

  He produced a summary of its work: Redfern, Secret History, p. 158.