"Dr. Mary's Monkey"

[Peter Lemkin]

Adele, thanks for that interesting tidbit on where LSD localizes in the body and brain! It is amazing how little it takes 100-200 micrograms to have a very strong and 'unusual' experience.

Jan, you seem to be searching for some reasonable answer to why France, why that small town, etc. There may be no 'reasonable' reason. Or, the 'reason' may only become apparent if we were to interview a participant in the planning or see the secret documents on it. Other operations have been carried out in ostensibly friendly nations. Certainly most of the Gladio operations were - and some were quite deadly. Granted they were of a different character and involved local 'stay-behind' neo-fascist groups, but seem to have been set up and instigated by some larger intel organization. I could imagine, for example, a moment of opportunity presenting itself in a small town in some way. Perhaps a very small outbreak of ergotism, to which the CIA team added their own ingredients to the bread in town - knowing that most of the reaction would be to their ingredients and not the ergot. Or some other logical situation of opportunity that we can't perceive. Or maybe they just randomly picked on a small town - they don't and didn't care about what happened to mere peasants [to them most everyone is a 'peasant'], in their notions of 'for the greater good' of the US and its Empire. The reactions of the townspeople certainly seem, to me, to be way beyond classical ergotism. And if it was put in the bread, then yes they had no way of controlling dosage and some must have had enormously strong trips - a terrifying experience, especially when one is not expecting anything unusual and/or knows nothing of hallucinogens.

[Christer Forslund]

From CIA: What Really Happened in the quiet French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit by Hank P. Albarelli Jr. (16 March 2010)

Stepping backward for a moment to the time before I discovered the true cause of the southern France outbreak, perhaps the very first solid clue I had that something was amiss about the incident was a CIA confidential informer's report I had been given in 1999. That report, dated December 1953, concerned a meeting the unidentified informer had with an official with the Sandoz Chemical Company in New York City. The informer wrote that after "having several drinks" the Sandoz official blurted out, "The Pont Saint Esprit secret' was that it was not the bread at all." Continued the Sandoz official, "For weeks the French tied up our laboratories with analyses of bread. It was not the grain ergot, it was a diethylamide-like compound." By this, of course, the official meant a man-made drug had provoked the Pont St. Esprit outbreak.

The CIA informer then asked, according to his report, "If the material wasn't in the bread then how did it get into the people?"
To this, the official responded, "An experiment." Now concerned, the informer asked, "An experiment?" To which the Sandoz official coyly responded, "Maybe by the French government," knowing that most likely the American informer well knew the identities of the actual perpetrators of the experiment. It was all an act of high political drama and subterfuge that concluded with the Sandoz official saying, "One small reason I'm here in the U.S. is to dispose of our LSD. If war breaks out our LSD will disappear."

[Christer Forslund]

From CIA: What Really Happened in the quiet French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit by Hank P. Albarelli Jr. (16 March 2010)

When I discussed the FBI memoranda with former Fort Detrick biochemists they confidentially informed me that the New York City experiments "were delayed until after the experiment was conducted in France." Said one former Special Operations Division scientist, "The overall results of the experiment in southern France were good, but there was also an adverse effect or what would now be called a black swan' reaction. That several people died was unexpected, completely unexpected. It wasn't supposed to turn out that way, so it was back to the drawing boards."

Earlier in the article, I wrote that I found the Pont St. Esprit experiment initially shocking. In many ways, I still do. But perhaps not for all those reasons many readers would imagine. Firstly, I find it shocking when I read Internet reactions to it, as contained in my book, over the past month like, "So what, at least they didn't do it in a small town in America", or worse yet, "Why didn't they pick a town in Mexico; it's closer by?" I'm saddened to find that some Americans have become both numb and immune to the arrogant and horrible past actions of the CIA.

[Magda Hassan]

Remember the CIA plan to project a huge holographic image of Jesus Christ on the horizon so the Cubans, most being religious, might think Jesus was coming to earth and to them?
Adele

The most lovely thing happened instead and it had nothing to do with the CIA. When Castro was giving a vistory speech, can't recall where but not Havana, as he was standing in the crowd and rallying everyone a dove flew down and settled on his shoulder as he was speaking. For many of the superstitious Cubans this was seen as an omen that God chose Fidel.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jan, you seem to be searching for some reasonable answer to why France, why that small town, etc. There may be no 'reasonable' reason. Or, the 'reason' may only become apparent if we were to interview a participant in the planning or see the secret documents on it.

Yes, there may be no reasonable reason.

However, I have posted numerous articles showing "MK-ULTRA" experiments being conducted according to some version of the Scientific Method in various DPF threads.

Adele, Peter - you both have scientific training.

Please explain where you consider the reservations about Pont St Esprit that I have articulated in this thread to be unscientific.

[Jan Klimkowski]

From CIA: What Really Happened in the quiet French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit by Hank P. Albarelli Jr. (16 March 2010)

Earlier in the article, I wrote that I found the Pont St. Esprit experiment initially shocking. In many ways, I still do. But perhaps not for all those reasons many readers would imagine. Firstly, I find it shocking when I read Internet reactions to it, as contained in my book, over the past month like, "So what, at least they didn't do it in a small town in America", or worse yet, "Why didn't they pick a town in Mexico; it's closer by?" I'm saddened to find that some Americans have become both numb and immune to the arrogant and horrible past actions of the CIA.

Christer - I fundamentally disagree with Albarelli.

I consider his supposed rebuttal to be no rebuttal at all.

[Adele Edisen]

Jan, you said in your post #71:

Let me be more explicit about the Pont St Esprit incident. I absolutely believe it could have happened as Hank Albarelli describes, but my reservations are at two levels:
i) technical details such as mode of delivery;
ii) purpose of such human experimentation.

Adele, Peter - you both have scientific training.
Please explain where you consider the reservations about Pont St Esprit that I have articulated in this thread to be unscientific.

Peter will have to answer for himself, but I don't think I have stated anywhere that I consider your statements or reservations about the Pont-St.-Esprit event, or about Hank Albarelli's works, to be "unscientific." Or, untruthful, if that is what you think I think. So, I really don't understand your question here.

Let me point this out to you, that we all have some reservations about any activity sponsored by any intelligence (CIA or other) or military organization (ours or some foreign nation's) because we do not have a full accounting of that which is SECRET and happened a long time ago. What little we do learn can be shared and understood a bit better, but not totally. We can only discuss from what we know and what we can surmise from that.

On the question of mode of delivery of LSD to that French village, we could consider how LSD could have been delivered by thinking of its characteristic physical and chemical properties. It is odorless, tasteless, colorless, fairly resistant to moderate temperatures (it takes 4 weeks to decompose by 30% at 37 degrees Celsius (human body temperature) and can be kept indefinitely at 25 degrees Celsius - even better at 20 degrees (average room temperature). It easily dissolves in water and other fluids. Non-chlorinated well water, a probable source of drinking water could have been a vehicle for dispersion. Everybody drinks water, even in France.

Fog mists tainted with LSD could have been dispersed at night, and since this occurred in August of 1951, windows would have been open all night for ventilation and cooling during this hot summer month. Residential air conditioning had not yet arrived even in the US in 1951. In New Orleans insecticides were distributed this way at night by trucks to control the mosquito population.

LSD can be absorbed through the skin and the lungs. Certanly by mouth, so water and foods, sprinkled with LSD powder, is a possible route. Perhaps as a cover story the villagers were told that it was the ergotism from infected grain flour used in baking bread, as in the Middle Ages). Or it was a case of mass hysteria? Do we know if the people were told anything? Also, remember that 1951 was only 6 years after WWII ended. Perhaps they were told that the Germans had hidden something, a poison, which caused their illness. Was this village part of Nazi occupied France, or the unoccupied Vichy France?

As for the purpose of the human experimentation, there doesn't seem to be any, other than to see what would happen. Just like the Nazi experiments, such as puttling prisoners in ice cold water to see how long they would survive. Or, our own CIA flying over our cities spraying nonlethal biological organisms to study the distribution patterns. Incidentally, I've read that Dr. Frank Olson had done some some distribution studies within parts of the Pentagon Building by putting in powdered material into air ducts whch circulated air to the offices.
In the Pont-St.-Esprit it had some military purpose for a future war, and to see if it could be done at all.

Deaths from LSD intoxication may not always happen because of ultra-high doses, but from effects on an ill, malnourished, sickly, individual being sensitive to its effects. Or, a person receiving an above threshold dose becoming delusional and flying out of a high window or off a high bridge. This happened years ago to the son of a prominent neurophysiologist. His son, a freshman in college went to a college students' party and drank some punch, which, unbeknownst to the hosts, had been surreptitiously laced with LSD. The young man apparently felt that he could fly and he did fly out of the apartment window to his death.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jan, you said in your post #71:

Let me be more explicit about the Pont St Esprit incident. I absolutely believe it could have happened as Hank Albarelli describes, but my reservations are at two levels:
i) technical details such as mode of delivery;
ii) purpose of such human experimentation.

Adele, Peter - you both have scientific training.
Please explain where you consider the reservations about Pont St Esprit that I have articulated in this thread to be unscientific.

Peter will have to answer for himself, but I don't think I have stated anywhere that I consider your statements or reservations about the Pont-St.-Esprit event, or about Hank Albarelli's works, to be "unscientific." Or, untruthful, if that is what you think I think. So, I really don't understand your question here.

Adele - thank you for your thoughtful answer. If you read my post as an attack on yourself and Peter, I can assure you that it was not intended as such.

My critique of Albarelli's hypothesis about the Pont St Esprit incident is based around the Scientific Method, and a consideration of how the Pont St Esprit events fit into the context of illegal human experimentation.

"MK-ULTRA" existed wtihin a framework of science. Its technical leaders were doctors and scientists. Men like Jolly West, Harry Harlow, Robert G Heath, George Estabrooks, Martin Orne and Ewen Cameron were world leaders in their scientific fields.

Cameron was the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association

West was head of department and director of the Neuropsychiatry Institute at UCLA.

Heath founded the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane.

Rhodes Scholar Estabrooks was chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University.

Orne was emeritus professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Harlow was head of the Human Resources Research branch of the Department of the Army from 19501952, head of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research Council from 19521955, consultant to the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, and president of the American Psychological Association from 1958-1959.

These men's actions show them to be arrogant, ruthless, and willing to conduct experimentation in the absence of any meaningful informed consent. They all appear to have believed that the End justified the Means, where the Means was illegal human experimentation.

They also published medical and scientific textbooks which which became standard professional texts, taught to generations of students.

Therefore, my approach, when examining any evidence of "MK-ULTRA" activity is to consider it within a framework of the Scientific Method, applied in a world with no ethical constraints.

I have no problem in accepting that, in principle, these "MK-ULTRA" doctors would have sanctioned human experimentation on hundreds or thousands of people. However, I do have a problem in accepting that any of them would have regarded the results of the dispersal of LSD at Pont St Esprit as a means of learning almost anything useful in physiological or psychological terms.

As for the purpose of the human experimentation, there doesn't seem to be any, other than to see what would happen. Just like the Nazi experiments, such as puttling prisoners in ice cold water to see how long they would survive.

The Nazi doctor who led those terminal experiments was Hubertus Strughold.

Strughold was spirited to the USA as part of Paperclip, is known as "The Father of Space Medicine", and was one of the many Nazis embedded in the NASA project.

Strughold first coined the term "space medicine" in 1948 and was the first and only Professor of Space Medicine at the School of Aviation Medicine (SAM) at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. In 1949 Strughold was made director of the Department of Space Medicine at the SAM (which is now the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas). He played an important role in developing the pressure suit worn by early American astronauts. He was a co-founder of the Space Medicine Branch of the Aerospace Medical Association in 1950. He was named Chief Scientist, Aerospace Medical Division in 1961. The aeromedical library at Brooks AFB was named after him in 1977

So, here we have a bona fide Nazi doctor, who conducted terminal experiments and continued his Nazi research within the American university and military system.

Strughold was ruthless and unethical. However, this ruthlessness existed within the framework of the Scientific Method, and appears to have delivered genuine scientfic advances.

Meanwhile, like your good self, I believe it's certainly possible that LSD may have been delivered to Pont St Esprit through the atmosphere.

However, there are problems with this as a mode of delivery. Firstly, poison gas attacks are impossible to control. Eg the wind changes, and the poison blows back on your own side. Dosage levels are also entirely unpredictable.

Secondly, there are technical problems related to the development of LSD.

From Eric Olson's site:

It was

in October 1954, that Eli Lilly & Company had succeeded in synthesizing the drug in its laboratories. This was the breakthrough the agency had been awaiting for three years; now it had access to all the LSD money could buy.

It was judged to be so important that a special memorandum on the subject was rushed to CIA director Dulles on October 26. The CIA clandestine services had immediately concluded that now LSD could be employed not only in testing but also in actual intelligence operations, for reasons given in the memo to Dulles: "Hitherto, LSD could not be considered seriously as a candidate Chemical Warfare agent for overt use. This was due to two factors: a) until recently only volatile liquids could be disseminated in a suitable fashion in bulk. LSD is a solid. LSD can now be produced in quantity and recent technical developments make it possible to disseminate solids in an effective manner."

At this point, the matter was considered so important that the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence prepared its bulky top-secret study, "Strategic Medical Significance of Lysergic Acid Diethylamidc (LSD-25)," which was circulated to only seven senior officials besides Dulles. The study offered the best rationale to date for tests on humans. The drug had important strategic advantages. It was assumed that Russian scientists were aware of it. National security might be at stake.

As far back as April 1953, for example, a special CIA committee running the secret drug program had requested a "large number of bodies" for testing mind-affecting compounds, expressing the belief that a great many American scientists would be willing and anxious to carry out the experiments. In 1955, the CIA concluded that tests in a controlled environment-at the agency and in hospitals and prisons-were no longer sufficient, and, to make sense, they had to be conducted in "normal social situations."

All along, Gottlieb had been trying to persuade his CIA superiors that experiments on unwitting subjects were necessary. He explained it thus: "One of the difficulties of determining explicitly the effect of the drug itself is that the subject and the observer are both conscious of the fact that an experiment is being performed. It is hoped in the next year that subjects... who are essentially normal from a psychiatric point of view will be given unwitting doses of the drug.... In this way more valuable experiments will probably be carried out in spite of hospital conditions. Attempts are being made at present to set up projects with collaborating organizations on the effect of LSD-25 on brain metabolism, on the metabolic activities of nerves and on enzyme reactions."

The CIA had learned a great deal about LSD during its first four years of experiments, but it was also aware of wide gaps in its knowledge. After reading the strategic study, therefore, CIA director Dulles said in a 1955 memo to the secretary of defense that "it would appear to be important that field trials be made to determine the effects on groups of people or on individuals engaged in group activities." This was the official green light for the CIA's indiscriminate testing of LSD on unsuspecting Americans, and from 1955 onward, there's evidence that more Such subjects were involved as the CIA kept expanding its quest for a dream drug without interference by agency directors or Presidents.

The Pont St Esprit incident took place in 1951, before LSD had been synthesized. CORRECTION: before a cheap means of synthesizing LSD in bulk form had been discovered.

To sum up, I'm not currently willing to abandon a critical, scientifically driven, analysis of clandestine experimentation. I believe the "MK-ULTRA" doctors acted entirely without moral conscience or ethical constraint. I also believe they acted within some sort of scientific framework. Albeit a bastard one.

So, my own judgement is that the Pont St Esprit incident may have happened as described by Albarelli.

However, I regard Albarelli's work as a fascinating hypothesis not yet proven as fact.

[Peter Lemkin]

Jan, I too have no critique on how you are trying to critique [using scientific methodology] the French Village incident - and/or logic of it. I'll have more to say on this in the morning...too tired now. But, I wanted to correct you. LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical derived by Arthur Stoll from ergot, a grain fungus that typically grows on rye. It was later that the drug could be manufactured from its constituent organic groups - rather than a lesser transformation from a similar natural substance. There is a distinction. The end product, however, would be the same. So, timing is not an issue here. It existed and Hoffman made his famous bicycle trip before the War! The Swiss and the Germans tested it during the War.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Jan, I too have no critique on how you are trying to critique [using scientific methodology] the French Village incident - and/or logic of it. I'll have more to say on this in the morning...too tired now.

Peter - thank you. I look forward to your further comments.

But, I wanted to correct you. LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical derived by Arthur Stoll from ergot, a grain fungus that typically grows on rye. It was later that the drug could be manufactured from its constituent organic groups - rather than a lesser transformation from a similar natural substance. There is a distinction. The end product, however, would be the same. So, timing is not an issue here. It existed and Hoffman made his famous bicycle trip before the War! The Swiss and the Germans tested it during the War.

I must be tired too, because you are quite correct that LSD was first synthesized in 1938, and we all know the story of Dr Hofmann's famous bike ride.

What happened in 1954 was

that Eli Lilly & Company published the details of a new process they had developed for synthesizing lysergic acid (the parent molecule of the ergot alkaloids) cheaply and in bulk. The immediate effect of this breakthrough was to keep down the price of ergot alkaloids, which tip to then had been distributed only by Sandoz. But there were other unanticipated results as well. Vast quantities of lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, could now be produced with reasonable ease in any sophisticated chemistry laboratory

Or, put another way:

In 1953 the CIA provided Eli Lilly with funding to attempt synthesis of LSD for CIA use without the need for the expensive and scarce reagents required by Sandoz. A year later, Lilly chemists succeeded in their quest, and subsequent supplies were from Lilly[1,2].

-----------------

References:
1.CIA documents: Document #24, 16 November, 1953, Subject: ARTICHOKE Conference; Document #268, 23 October, 1953, Subject: Meeting in Director's Office at 1100 hours on 23 October with Mr. Wisner and [deleted]; Document # 316,6 January,1954, Subject: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25); and Document #338, 26 October 1954, Subject: Potential Large Scale Availability of LSD through newly discovered synthesis by [deleted]; interviews with Sandoz and Lilly former executives; and Sidney Gottlieb's testimony before Kennedy subcommittee, 1977, p. 203.
2.Marks, John (1979). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: CIA and Mind Control. W W Norton & Co Ltd, 264. ISBN 0393307948

So, the technical challenge to the use of LSD on a mass scale in 1951 is that it would have been hugely expensive and time consuming to gather the ingredients necessary to synthesize enough LSD for a mass experiment.

Also, looking at the known literature about early LSD experiments, most of them involve a very small number of individuals in highly controlled settings - eg the interrogation of Dimitrov.