EXAM SUGGESTS LSD TEST SUBJECT DIDN'T KILL HIMSELF, as CIA insists...

From Arkansas Democratic Gazette, July 13, 1994
By Brian Mooar the Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Preliminary results of a forensic examination appear to contradict government assertions that germ-warfare researcher Frank R. Olson, who died in 1953 after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA experiment, jumped to his death from a Manhattan hotel.

Multiple fractures to Olson's skull did not appear consistent with a 13-story fall, according to James E. Starrs, a George Washington University professor of law and forensic science.

Starrs, who examined Olson's remains after they were exhumed in June in Frederick, MD., said injuries to the skull and other parts of Olson's body suggested his death was not the simply suicide that the government has portrayed for 40 years.

Starrs' early findings add to the Olson family's decades-old suspicion that Olson was slain. Relatives believe Olson, one of the nation's top germ-warfare researchers, was killed because the LSD he unknowingly took made him erratic and irrational and a threat to reveal classified information.

"The suspicions are looming much larger," said Starrs, characterizing the new evidence as "curious" or even "sinister".

The CIA has denied any foul play in Olson's death, which occurred with a CIA agent in the room. At the time, the agent told police he awakened to a loud noise and discovered the hotel window smashed and Olson lying on the sidewalk below.

CIA spokesman David Christian said Monday he was unaware of Starrs' team's findings and could not comment.

The family's suspicions were aroused in 1975, when the CIA released files pertaining to Olson's death to a panel investigating allegedly improper and illegal CIA activities in the United States.

The family learned that Olson was an unknowing participant in a CIA program called MK-ULTRA, a secret program to study the possible uses of LSD and other drugs for intelligence or military purposes.

Nine days before Olson's death on Nov. 28, 1953, a CIA scientist slipped LSD into Olson's after-dinner drink at a secret Maryland scientific-retreat, and the normally cheerful Olson became depressed and began behaving erratically.

The family has fought over the years to obtain CIA documents detailing the events leading to Olson's death, but Olson's son, Eric, a Frederick psychologist, said the documents were heavily censored and often contradictory.

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