Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Did the CIA test LSD on unsuspecting Americans?

Transcript

Did the CIA test LSD on unsuspecting Americans? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from house stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh. This is Chuck Chuck m I
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: am Chuck. I'm here. I'm going to prepare today as usual.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That kind of method approached the podcasting. Now I know
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: what you're getting at now I did not. You're just
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: feeling a little hinky or I'm hinky. That's I like that.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm hinky. Can you pull yourself together? I'm together,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I'm with it. I am I'm fine. This is this
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is kind of an important one. It's a little out there,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: but it's all true. It is okay, So you're fine,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, I'm good. Let's do it. Well, we're talking
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: today about a certain set of experiments carried out by
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a certain government agency is known as the CIA. Yes,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and they, uh, they carried out an experiment with another
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: three letter word LSD right on unsuspecting Americans. Yeah. I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: think most people, uh would not expect to hear those
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: six letters together in the same sentence. And this is
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: not widely known, so no, it really isn't, and frankly
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it should be. And I think it's kind of one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of those things that uh supports just about every American's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: notion of what the CIA is up to at any
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: given time. And yet it's just so out there, so
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: fantastic that they actually did this that it's kind of
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: hard to believe. But this is documented. This actually happened.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It didn't. Okay, do you want to give a little
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: background first? Uh, well, um, how about you tell us
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: how we know that this stuff happened. Well, because it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: on record. It's actually factually on record. Um. Yeah, there
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: are a couple of congressional hearings on it exactly. And
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: this is what amazes me is this happened in the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, which is even less likely because you think
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: about LSD acid as they call it as the kids
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: call it, You think about the nineteen seventies and or
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: l sixties and wood stock, But it was actually in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties when it was first being experimented with.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And we're talking the early fifties to um. Apparently we
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: were really you know, full on into the Cold War,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and um, we believed everything we heard about the Russians.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We apparently the c I A Uh found out that
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: the Russians were involved in some sort of truth serum
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: mind constroced mind Controlmenturian candidate experiments, right. Uh. And they
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: found out that the Swiss pharmaceutical company that will ring
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a bell of um the people who've taken acid and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: listen to our podcast Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. Um. They had this
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: stuff that was first created by a Swiss chemist named
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Albert Hoffman. It was LSD and uh. They apparently had
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand hits one million, hundred million hits a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: bowl to anyone who wanted to buy it was on
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the open market. They were legitimate pharmaceutical company. And this
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: is back when as a lot of people don't know,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: LSD was an actual legitimate pharmaceutical. It was also often
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: used later on for um therapy. Did you know that? Uh? Well,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in in the States, Carrie Grant was huge, huge in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the acid I kid you not my friend. He he
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: took many a trip and he actually I can't remember
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: who he's married to. It may have been me, a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: pharaoh or somebody. He he essentially chased her off by
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: being so insistent about his wife undergoing acid therapy LSD
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: therapy that she was like, you're a freak. I could
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: see that. Yeah, So okay, so we're let's get back
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to the sand. Does thing forget carry grant? Yeah, they've
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: got a hundred million hits of acid on the market,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: which I mean really, the c I heard this and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: they're thinking, okay, a hundred million hits. They could take
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: out New York l A. The Russians could get this
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: into the water supply, and all of a sudden, we
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: have a population that's not listening to us anymore. Right,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I guess they were. They wanted to create some sort
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of chaos or mass hysteria or something like that, or
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: at worst, like the Manchurian candidate program, unwitting assassins who
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you know, carried out these murders and had no recollection
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of doing it or being programmed. So they're like these
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: perfect assassins. Right. They kind of suspected that LSD might
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: help with that kind of thing. So uh, when the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: CIA hears that these these hits are on the market,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: they scrambled to buy them. That's what it turns out.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: There is only Yeah, how much think in the US,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: good old U S government said we'll take all of them.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So they bought forty hits of LSD acid in hand.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: They start carrying out their own horrific experiments. They went camping. No,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, all right. They built campfires, they went
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: they that's how a burning man actually started. UM. So
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: they they they they have all this acid and they say, well, okay,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: we have to figure out how to make our own
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Manchurian candidates and figure out how to use this as
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a truth thereom ourselves. It just so happened that this
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: this acid was purchased at a time that the CIA
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: launched this UM project called MK Ultra. And this project
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: was huge. Actually doesn't stand for anything. No I I
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: never found it either. It doesn't stand There were some
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: other projects like MK projects that did stand for things,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: but Ultra it didn't stand for anything, which is unusual. UM.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So they carry out MK Ultra, which is a hundred
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and forty nine subprojects, and it's this vast range of
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: basically figure out how to get into people's minds um
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: or kill them like one apparently they had magicians come
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in and t CIA operatives. How do you slide of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: hand and poison people's drinks. Yeah, I can. I can
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: virtually guarantee you a lot of magicians were shot in
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the back of the head after they gave that class.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: That was during the big magic freeze of the Yeah, yeah,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that would account for it. That was one subproject. Another
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: was UM using electro convulsive therapy to get people to tall,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: which I'm sure was a lot of fun but it
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: worked too. Yeah, there was radiation treatments. They wanted to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: see how much radiation people who could be exposed to UM.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And this is actually one of the more horrific aspects
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: of it. There there's a video on YouTube if you,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I think type in something like a MK ultra testimony
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: or radiation testimony. There is a woman who's testifying at
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a hearing I think it's one of the nineteen seventies
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: hearings UM, and she's talking about how she I think
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: she was an orphan and she and everybody else in
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the orphanage were made to be test subjects by the
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: by the c I A not on LSD, but like
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: radiation and all that, and it's just clearly broken. She's
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a broken person. Now she's much older by this time,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and it's just crazy to see somebody who actually was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: experimented on. She's an American who has all these rights
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and just got thrown out the window. Well yeah, and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I know that they experimented on prisoners a lot too. Yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: specifically black prisoners. So here's where we get into some
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of the shadier LSD experiments. That's one of them. They
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: go into a black prison and basically against the inmates,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: will as far as I know, uh, test LSD on them. Now,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: imagine taking LSD in prison, right, I can't think of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: anything worse than that, combo. Uh. And and these were,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: like I said, this was an all black prison, um,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and it was just bad. That's just a bad experiment.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Another one was they they lured heroin uh junkies. Yeah.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I love this one too because and how did they
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: lure them? They paid them in heroin. The CIA paid
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: these people in heroin. And this is again documented fact. Uh.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of other experiments going on. And
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: actually the stuff was so rampant, as you know, Chuck,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: that the CIA actually developed an acid culture for a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: while and within their own Uh yeah, they used to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: dose one another at parties. Um. They used to take
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it themselves recreationally, like get any been like LSD conference
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: retreat something like that. The people were probably running around
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: on acid, I know, you know, reading your article, it
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: seemed almost unreal. Yeah, clearly, and it sounded like the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and the CIA. It was almost like a prank, like,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, agent nine, let's just go drop some
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: acid in agent drink there. That's almost precisely what happened.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: And there'd be like a group who dosed somebody and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: then everybody would be watching them and like a half
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: hour later that the joke will beyond him. He'd spend
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the next you know, eight to twelve hours just or whatever. Yeah. U. So, yeah,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the CIA was well versed in the in how it
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: felt to take acid, But the CIA operative isn't the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: average American, So they wanted to experiment on a normal people,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and I'd say normal kind of unwillingly because they did
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: have a certain criteria of who could be targeted for it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So they went to kind of the semi under belly
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of cities and they found like hookers and junkies and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: uh who else, Um, well, the guy the pornographers. Yeah,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the guy who found these folks posts a pimp? Is
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: that right? Yeah? An alternate personality. Let's talk about these people.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: All right. There's this guy, all right, his name is
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Dr Sidney Gottlie. This guy has a club foot. He
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: overcame an almost debilitating stutter, and he went on to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: become the chief of the Technical division for the CIA. Now,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: this guy's greatest hits among you know, carrying out the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: LSD experiments, was developing agent orange, another drug that he
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: had tested by the people who were conducting the CIA
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: or the LSD tests UM eventually gave way to erectile
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: this function drugs Um. He did a lot of crazy
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: stuff and some less uh less solid evidence can puts
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: him in Africa at the time that Ebola broke out
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of nowhere. Maybe not a coincidence there, Yeah, No, is
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: he a medical doctor? Was he? He was? He was?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: He was a medical doctor. He was probably from what
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I understand him, he probably had several doctorates to different degrees,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and I think he was also Now he may have
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: been a chemist actually now I think about it, but
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I think he did have a medical training as well. Uh.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: That's that's the guy who's running the head of this
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: he's the head of this experiment. UM right right below him,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is one of the most legendary characters you will ever
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: hear about in your life. George Hunter White. They need
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to make a biopic film about this guy. I can't
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: believe they haven't already. Um. He originally White originally started out. Um.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: He really first made a name for himself by posing
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: as a heroin trafficker um for the better part of
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties and busting up this Chinese opium ring.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And he took down hundreds of people. But to get there,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, I'm sure he had to smoke opium
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: quite frequently. Um, And he basically infiltrated this. He took
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a blood oath with this Chinese gang he was in,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and he eventually took him down. Uh. So that's how
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: he made a name for himself. Uh. But he he
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: didn't really, I hate to use this cliche. He didn't
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: play by the rules. Not only did he not play
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: by the rules, the guys totally amoral. He was a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: completely amoral, a bit of a rogue agent. Yeah. I
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: think he just kind of went whichever way, his his
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: um his all whichever way pretty much. Yeah, because he
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was definitely one of the ones who took the acid right. Um,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: so it all starts with him. Like the most that
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: we know about the LSD experiments, they go back to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: George Hunter White. So White gets tapped by Gottlieb to
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: carry out these experience experiments, and it all starts in
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: New York. He didn't have a safe house or anything
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: like this. This guy was doing these experiments on his
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: friends at first in his apartment in New York, basically
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: having acid parties without telling them that they were going
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to be taking acid. And actually you could argue that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: George Hunter White held the first acid parties in the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: history of the earth. Um. This guy was really he'd
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: make up batches of Martinis um and serve them to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: his guests. And of course the picture of Martini was
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: spiked to god knows how much LSD well. That's one
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of the things who I was wondering is at the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: time they were just starting to experiment, so they didn't
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: even know what was a full dose, what what it
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: would do. I mean, this is how they found out. Yeah, um,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and and he had a he had a terminology for, um,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: what happened if you had a bad trip. He called
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it the horrors. One of the reasons we know so
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: much about this is because George White kept a diary
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of notes um that for his experiments, at least to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: maintain some semblance of experimentation. He took notes on it. Um.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so he'd serve his guests martinis, right, and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: then just sit back and take notes. After it started
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: kicking in. There was a whole subgroup of close friends
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: of his that were actually in a certainly recruited and
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: they would bring their friends and he actually had this
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: kind of um swinger social group um and swinger by
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: every definition of the word. White apparently was into Spike
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Hilled boots. He'd do anything for a woman in Spike
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Hill Boots. Um. Who know, right. His friends were just
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: imagine like the the fifties shade ball porno swinger groups.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And this is what White was at the center, except
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: he was, unbeknownst to all of his friends, a CIA
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: operative experimenting on lst need to be a film in
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the works. I would go that would Uh, So he's
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: carrying out experiments and again there was a certain subgroup
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of friends who loved it. They years later, um, in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the nineties, a lot of this this information came out
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and it just fell to the wayside for reasons I
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: can't understand, um, but there a lot of them were like,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: we loved acid. George loved acid, Like we just took
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: acid all time. Some people didn't like acid. Though exactly
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: can go one of two ways generally when it comes
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: to yeah, there's not really a middle ground of a
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: think now. Um, So there's this one woman in particular
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: named Barbara Newsome. I felt terrible and she was like
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: a young mother, and um, she was married, and her
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: husband was actually kind of this, um, kind of a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: cad from what I understand, Um, he was part of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: White's little swinger group, but I also got the impression
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: that was kind of peripheral. Wanted to be in further,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: but they just didn't think too highly of him. But
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: White thought his wife was pretty hot. So he waits
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: till her husband's out of town and invites her over.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And Barbara Newsome was not really hip to what was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: going on. She had a young kid, She had a
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: twenty month old baby that she brought to the party,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: so she clearly did not know what was gonna totally
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: unaware of what was going on. So White, um doses
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: here anyway, right, and the part of The problem was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: white quickly got bored, especially if you were on a
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: bad trip. He had no there was no padded room
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: that he took you to, or he didn't hand you
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like a hash pipe or anything like that. You were
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: on your own. He wanted you out of his hair,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and that was that. So it was a big bummer
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: for him, I guess exactly. At the very least, it
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: made him irritable. So he'd turned you out on the street,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: just tripping your head off, and um that that's that's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what became a Barbara Knewsome. She was turned out on
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the street. She had a bad trip, and she went home.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: She never told anybody about it. Um. Her husband later
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: pieces together. They eventually divorced, but he didn't even know
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: what happened to her. No, I don't think she had
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a clue what happened to her. She she became depressed,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: her marriage fell apart. She ended up being committed on
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and off for the next twenty years. Um. And also
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: again from from the research I did, she was probably
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: a little more fragile than the average person, and it
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: made something else could have happened to her in her
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: life that that put her through this. The fact is
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: this woman was experimented on. It's documented facts. She she
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: was one of White's test subjects and her life fell apart, right, Sure,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: she kind of represents the bad side of these experiments. Yeah,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I would say that's definitely the bad side. And one
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: person died, isn't that correct? Yeah? Dr Frank Olsen, Yeah,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: his son really has taken up the charge of trying
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to get the truth exposed. His father is definitely documented
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: as having been tested on at one of those parties.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And now imagine like his father was an army scientists,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a research scientists whose specialty was in delivering poisons through aerosols.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: He was a lab orate. He probably, I imagine if
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: social skills weren't as quite refined as maybe whites or
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: anybody else's. Uh, he goes to this party and um,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: they they give him a shot of dost quantroux and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: he does not handle it well. Now and this is
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: it Thanksgiving to He's around things. These guys clearly had
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: no qualms about. You know this one lady had a baby.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: This guy so the holidays and he skipped Thanksgiving with
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: his family because he was so freaked out. Hey, they
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: actually contacted the closest CIA approved doctor who was I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: think a pediatrist or something like that, and but he
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: was the closest physician. I think the guy was in Virginia,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: which is close by to where this this c I
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: A army conference took place. And so Dr Olsen's just
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: freaking out and he's doing it very loudly. I think
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: he kind of took everybody off guard with his reaction
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to the l s T. They bring this doctor, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the doctors like, this guy needs some serious care and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: basically we need to kidnap him. And he has corns
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: on his feet. Write a boots is always notices those things. Yeah,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: well yeah, how it's his training. So um, they basically
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: sequester this guy. They call his family and say, your
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: husband isn't going to be home for Thanksgiving. He can't
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: make it. Basically, don't ask any questions or any Thanksgiving.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: As it turns out, right, eight days after his bad trip,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: he goes out the tenth story window of a hotel
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: in New York and um, it was apparently suicide. That's
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: how it was ruled. But years later, I think in
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: or four, his son who actually started a website, the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Frank Olsen Project, very interesting stuff. He um he had
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: his father's body exhumed and there was evidence of pre
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: mortem blunt forest trauma to the head, which kind of suggests,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you know, this guy was probably murdered. And a couple
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of years after the body was exhumed, Mike Feldman, who
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: posed as the pimp, will get to him in a second.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: In an interview with Spin magazine, he said, you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: George Hunter White was doing the asset tests in New
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: York at the time. This guy went out of the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: hotel window in New York. So you know, you don't
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: have to put you put two and two together. No
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: one ever has definitively, but you know, it kind of
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: seems like the kind of guy White was, he didn't
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: seem to have qualms about stuff like, so, okay, New
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: York's over, Yeah, this is this is where it gets good.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And it was sort of predictable when you look back.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: But they moved the operation to an actually a funded
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: place in San Francisco of the the apartment called the Path,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that's literally it was called the Pad. And basically I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: get the impression that White left his swinging social scene
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and his wife behind in New York and he goes
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and takes the show on the road by himself in
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. And at first, UM, let me describe the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: pad real quick. It's this little apartment with the kind
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: of bohemian art on the walls and yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: but it was probably pretty close. Um. One of the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: one of the main features is a two way mirror
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: with a little hollowed out room behind it. Um, and
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that looked out onto the main living room. Okay, So
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: basically White used to take a bunch of acid and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: he would pose as either a merchant, seaman or like
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: some sort of starving artists, and he'd go into San
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Francisco and basically find the prostitutes and the john's and um,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the drug dealers, and he'd round them up and bring
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: them back to his place and just dose him with acids.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And they didn't feel bad because they consider these people
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: just the dregs of society. They figured they are degenerates anyway.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think that there's probably a pretty
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: wide threshold of you know, who was fair game and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: he wasn't. Like I'm sure if you were caught with
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a Nudi mag under your mattress and you were married,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: they would have considered you fair game degenerator. Here's some
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and here's some acid. Yeah all right, So, um, at first,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: White surrounding all these people up right, and he's basically
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: just partying with him in San Francisco on acids. Right.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Eventually he recruits Ike Feldman, that guy that we mentioned
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: who did that Sin magazine interview. And Ike Feldman is
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: just a badass. He is a tough, grit old old
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the fringe of the law cop right. He does whatever.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: He's like the model for Vic Mackie from the Shield.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever has to be done to get the job done. Whatever,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how many times you break the law,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: if at the end you're bringing in the bad guy
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: or whatever. So he gets recruited by White, who basically
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: um goes and takes his rightful place behind the two
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: way mirror to watch how Feldman brings in the prostitutes
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and the John's and it got a little freaky from there. Yeah,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of made me wonder if
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the whole uh culture of San Francisco was kind of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: known in the sixties as you know, the counterculture, the revolution,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the free love, the Summer of Love, if the c
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I actually kind of helped create this in the nineteen fifties.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I can tell you most decidedly it did. Uh. And
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the reason why, here's the punch line of the whole thing. This,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: this is just this makes this whole thing beautiful and elegant,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: as a mathematician would put it. One of the people
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: who signed up for the legitimate experiments, actually, I think
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it was at a v A hospital or something was
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a fellow by the name of ken Kesey. Ken kezi
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: U was an orderly at a mental hospital at the time.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: He was basically researching Um for his later book One
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Casey's other came claim to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: fame was he was the founder of the Mary Pranksters,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and the Mary Pranksters hung out with the Hell's Angels,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead, wrote around in a in a colorful
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: bus and basically we're the establishment of the hippie movement.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And the Tom Wolf book Electric Kolait Asset test Is
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: is a great read. Yeah, and it really gets into
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: this period in our history and it's about Kesi and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the and the Mary Pranksters UM and Kesi was one
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: of these willing participants in a test subject by the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: CIA on LSD. He was given it a couple of times, realized,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: holy cow, I love this stuff. Uh, found out that
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Sandos was the company that was making it, got a bunch,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: shared it with his friends once it went illegal. He
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: also befriended Stanley Owsley, who was like the premier underground
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: acid chemists in the sixties, and it all just kind
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of went from there. So directly, the c i A
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: led to the birth of the hippie counterculture and any
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: remnants and traces of it still alive today that they
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: later would condemn and uh, you know, cops will put
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the beat down on the hippies and the Beatnicks, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: just kind of funny that it was kind of created
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: by the government. It's amazing, it is. It's beautiful. So
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I that's the story of the CIA and LSD and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the gingerbread man. Wow. Okay, so stick around because this
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: seems almost unimportant. We're gonna tell you what article makes
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Chuck want to go out and even mc river to LSD,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to the mcribe round for that right after this. Okay,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it's for sticking around. Um, Chuck, Yes, what makes you
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: want to eat a mcribb. But man, Well, what doesn't
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: make me want to eat a mcgrib, joshin The mcgrib
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is a a temporary menu item, a featured menu item
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that you see a McDonald's occasionally, and as you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: it's some sort of pork product, uh, compressed into the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: shape of ribs bones at home. Yeah, but there are
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: no bones. It's just part of the pork product that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: represents and they put it on an oblong bun, slather
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it with some sauce and it's deltch. You're preaching of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: the choir. Friend had those and I'm hooked on them.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: But this isn't a mcdonald' scrimmerteal No, so you should
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: tell them the article well, it's I think top five
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: McDonald's menu items that didn't make it. Yeah. Yeah, it's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a bit of silliness, but it's it's kind of a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: fun real it is. It's very interesting. It's actually I
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: took it. It's written by our esteem colleague, Jane McGrath,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: who did a heck of a job with it. Um.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: It's it's almost this gland into the corporate culture of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: McDonald's and marketing and how it goes wrong, terribly wrong. Yeah,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: there are two things on there that I would like
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: to have seen. Shamrocks shank. Yeah, I love the Shamrocks shake.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I've never had one, Oh do They're great? Um. And
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the other was the what was the one that keeps
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the hot side hot in the cool side cool? The
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: lt Yes, that's right, that's right. Um. I would have
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: liked to have seen those on there because I just
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: loved the packaging for the McDLT right. The thing was cool.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I think that in the green movement in these days
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't go over because it's twice the packaging quickly. Yeah. Yeah,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Well you can read all sorts of stuff about the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: green movement and plenty of menu items that didn't really
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: make it for McDonald's, and don't forget to read about
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the C, I, A and L S D. All of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: them can be found by typing in some clever words
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: in the search bar on how stuff works dot Com
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com? Let us know what
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you think. Send an email to podcast and how stuff
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Works dot Com, brought to you by the reinvented two
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you