Monday, March 31, 2014

Just Do It


                                                                 


Frank OlsonIn the early morning hours of November 28, 1953, Frank Olson fell from a tenth floor  in midtown Manhattan. When questioned, hotel operators said two calls had recently been made from 1018A. In one of the calls, a voice said “he’s gone,” to which another voice replied “that’s too bad.”
 
 
 June 11, 1975. Splashed across the front page of the Washington Post was this headline: ;PANEL INVESTIGATES:SUICIDE REVEALED. The panel the Post was referring to was the Rockefeller Commission, led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and set up by President Gerald Ford to investigate *** misdeeds. It found that “a civilian employee of the Department of the ***unwittingly took LSD as part of a *** test” and had “developed serious side effects.” Serious as in jumping from a tenth floor hotel window.
The article did not mention Frank Olson by name, but his family immediately knew it was him. For 22 years they had been in the dark about Frank’s death. Now they knew that LSD was involved and they wanted answers. Daughter Lisa contacted ****, who had been Frank’s boss  confirmed that the man in the Post story was indeed her father and that he had known about Frank Olson’s tragic tale all along. As a matter of fact, the**** had ordered him to maintain contact with Frank’s wife Alice following his death, which he faithfully did. He watched as Alice Olson spiraled downward into alcoholism and despair. Whenever Lisa’s brother Eric would ask Alice about Frank’s death she would inevitably reply that he would “never know what happened in that room
 
 
 
2014
 

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