A Terrible Mistake

More about the book

This volume presents the author's account of the controversial death of Army biochemist Dr. Frank Olson. In 1953, Olson, an Army biochemist working with the CIA, fell to his death from a hotel window in New York City. Twenty-two years later it was revealed that the scientist had been drugged with a chemical similar to LSD days before his death. In 1996, the New York District Attorney's Office opened a murder investigation into Olson's strange death. The book documents the several facts surrounding the death of Olson. No arrests or charges were ever filed. This work It offers a unique and unprecedented look into the backgrounds of many former CIA, FBI, and Federal Narcotics Bureau officials, including several who actually oversaw the CIA's mind-control programs from the 1950s to the 1970s. In retracing these programs, a frequently bizarre and frightening world is introduced, colored, and dominated by many factors -- Cold War fears, the secret relationship between the nation's drug enforcement agencies and the CIA, and the government's close collaboration with the Mafia.