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Frank Olson | |
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| Born | July 17, 1910 Hurley, Wisconsin, United States |
| Died | November 28, 1953 New York City, New York, United States |
| Cause of death | Fall |
| Nationality | Statesian |
| Field of study | Biochemistry |
Frank Rudolph Emmanuel Olson (July 17, 1910 – November 28, 1953) was a CIA biochemist who worked on biological warfare at Fort Detrick. In 1953, he died from falling from the 13th floor of the Statler Hotel in New York after violating CIA secrecy protocols.[1]
Experiments[edit | edit source]
Olson worked as a scientist at the Army Biological Warfare Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. In 1950, Olson became head of the Special Operations Division, which created biological weapons. He was also deputy to Sidney Gottlieb, the head of MKUltra. He traveled to England, France, Germany, and Norway. In the German town of Oberursel, he used drugs and hypnosis to interrogate suspected Soviet spies and erase their memories afterwards.[1]
During his OSD work, Olson learned about Operation Paperclip. He interviewed Nazi doctor Walter Schreiber, an anthrax expert who tested drugs on concentration camp inmates. Olson became disillusioned and admitted to breaking security protocols.[1]
Olson and his OSD colleagues were in France in August 1951 when 250 villagers from Pont-Saint-Espirit suddenly became disoriented with symptoms of LSD poisoning. Seven died and many more went insane. Albert Hofmann, a researcher for Sandoz Company which supplied LSD to the CIA and U.S. Army, had been in Pont-Saint-Espirit that summer. Other CIA officials suspected that he was talking to civilians about the experiment.[1]
Korean War[edit | edit source]
At Fort Detrick, Olson received biological warfare knowledge from Ishii Shirō's Unit 731 experiments during the Second World War. He tested Korean insects and rats against laboratory animals. He visited Tōkyō, where Unit 406 was making biological weapons out of anthrax, cholera, and plague, and created a top-secret unit called 8003 that worked on airborne pathogens.[1]
Death[edit | edit source]
After being drugged by the CIA, Olson fell from a window on the 13th floor of the Statler Hotel on the night of November 28, 1953. The glass from the window was completely removed, not broken as if he had crashed through it. Robert Lashbrook, another CIA agent who was staying with him, did not leave the room after Olson fell but instead called an unidentified person and said, "He's gone." Olson's family was not allowed to see his body, and he was buried without an autopsy.[1]
Olson's son Eric later had his body exhumed. Georgetown doctor James E. Starrs performed an autopsy on the remains and found no cuts from broken glass but did find a head wound caused by the butt of a gun. His body did not contain LSD at the time of his death.[1]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Jeremy Kuzmarov (2021-11-28). "“There’s Something Rotten in Denmark”: Frank Olson and the Macabre Fate of a CIA Whistleblower in the Early Cold War" CovertAction Magazine. Archived from the original on 2024-05-27.