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A Waste of Sin · Operation Midnight Climax

0:04
Speaker 1: In a politician named George Christopher promised to clean up
0:08
Speaker 1: San Francisco. The mayoral candidate swore of voters that all
0:12
Speaker 1: manner of vice would be eradicated, from drugs to illegal
0:15
Speaker 1: gambling to prostitution. No sin would go unnoticed under Christopher's watch,
0:21
Speaker 1: and his campaign worked. His administration endorsed s squads, cops
0:26
Speaker 1: whose sole duty it was to patrol San Francisco streets
0:29
Speaker 1: looking for signs of bad behavior. They arrested or intimidated
0:33
Speaker 1: all manner of people in the red light district. The muggers, gamblers,
0:39
Speaker 1: and dealers weren't having a good time under Christopher's watch,
0:43
Speaker 1: but the prostitutes, at least some of them had a
0:46
Speaker 1: way out. They just needed to say a name. George White.
0:51
Speaker 1: White was there get out of jail free card. The
0:54
Speaker 1: local cops knew his authority as a narcotics officer superseded
0:58
Speaker 1: their own when it came to sex workers, and so
1:00
Speaker 1: many prostitutes mentioned his name that law enforcement started referring
1:04
Speaker 1: to them as George's girls. San Francisco Narcotics Bureau. This
1:12
Speaker 1: is White got a lady of the night here says
1:14
Speaker 1: she doesn't belong to jail, So cut her loose any
1:18
Speaker 1: special reason. Why, Let's just say that lost souls get
1:22
Speaker 1: to me. Thanks boys. Why did White care so much
1:31
Speaker 1: about getting escorts out of jail, Well, he owed them
1:34
Speaker 1: a favor. That's because George's girls had some additional responsibilities.
1:40
Speaker 1: They were an extension of his experiments, subcontractors to one
1:44
Speaker 1: of the most powerful government agencies in the world, and
1:48
Speaker 1: not even the mayor of San Francisco had enough power
1:51
Speaker 1: or influence to keep George White from doing his patriotic duty.
1:56
Speaker 1: And in this case, George White's patriotic duty was to
2:00
Speaker 1: observe them from behind a two way mirror, watching them
2:03
Speaker 1: having sex while sitting on a portable toilet and drinking Martini's,
2:08
Speaker 1: often recording it though they didn't know it themselves. George's
2:15
Speaker 1: Girls were the CIA's prostitutes, and they would help George
2:19
Speaker 1: White reach the most depraved heights of his career. For
2:52
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, this is Operation Midnight Climax and I
2:57
Speaker 1: Heart original podcast, I'm Noel Brown and this is Chapter
3:02
Speaker 1: six A Waste of Sin, Part one The Wild West
3:14
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three, George White was like a traveling
3:17
Speaker 1: salesman running out of new customers. He targeted and drugged
3:20
Speaker 1: his friends, friends of friends, strangers, and more than a
3:24
Speaker 1: few criminals. But things were getting dangerous in Greenwich Village.
3:29
Speaker 1: Word had spread about the man with cold blue eyes
3:32
Speaker 1: who liked to invite you home and serve lsd on
3:35
Speaker 1: the rocks. But it wasn't just the rumors that worried him.
3:40
Speaker 1: George White was being followed. It started after White was
3:45
Speaker 1: told to close up shop at his Greenwich Village pad
3:48
Speaker 1: and take on a new assignment, this time in Houston, Texas.
3:53
Speaker 1: At the time, the police force was embroiled in a
3:55
Speaker 1: controversy involving crooked cops who were selling stolen heroin back
3:59
Speaker 1: to criminals, so White flew down. He started by interviewing
4:03
Speaker 1: a detective named Martin Bill Knitzer, but the case quickly stalled.
4:09
Speaker 1: The very next day, Bill Nitzer shot himself, well appeared
4:13
Speaker 1: to have shot himself. White thought it was murder. It's
4:18
Speaker 1: very difficult to shoot yourself in the chest. Houston police
4:23
Speaker 1: weren't happy about an outsider sticking his nose in their business.
4:27
Speaker 1: They called his boss, Harry Annslinger, to complain that he
4:30
Speaker 1: wasn't welcome. One cop even approached White in a diner
4:35
Speaker 1: gun on his hip and told him he leaned too
4:38
Speaker 1: hard on his friend. White shrugged it off. Then the
4:42
Speaker 1: man stepped back, eyeing White like they were in an
4:45
Speaker 1: Old West saloon, and told him they could settle things outside.
4:50
Speaker 1: George White might have wound up in a duel if
4:53
Speaker 1: cooler heads had n't prevailed, but that wasn't the end
4:56
Speaker 1: of it. Back in New York, White realized he was
5:01
Speaker 1: being tailed by Houston cops. They were hoping to find
5:04
Speaker 1: evidence he was a Communist at the time, a kiss
5:07
Speaker 1: of death that could have ruined his name and career.
5:11
Speaker 1: Of course, they didn't understand White had been busy fighting
5:14
Speaker 1: Communism for a very long time. Still, White realized it
5:19
Speaker 1: was a good time to leave New York City. Sydney Gottlieb,
5:22
Speaker 1: White supervisor, didn't want to stop drug experiments, so he
5:27
Speaker 1: proposed that White relocate to San Francisco and resume his
5:30
Speaker 1: activities there. But there would be a twist. While White
5:35
Speaker 1: had been occupied with the roll of drugs and getting
5:37
Speaker 1: the truth, Gottlieb now wanted him to weaponize sex as well.
5:44
Speaker 1: Spies and sex have a long tradition together. Seduction has
5:48
Speaker 1: always played a role in foreign intrigue. And espionage, especially
5:51
Speaker 1: in the movies, and the principle was similar to the
5:54
Speaker 1: one behind LSD. It was about someone letting their guard down.
5:59
Speaker 1: Sex may to subject vulnerable. Maybe Sidney Gottlieb had been
6:04
Speaker 1: looking for the weapon to win the Cold War in
6:06
Speaker 1: the wrong places all along. Maybe sex was the ultimate
6:11
Speaker 1: truth drug. In March nineteen fifty, White and Albertine packed
6:17
Speaker 1: their things and headed to San Francisco. The couple maintained
6:21
Speaker 1: a separate residence there, but the real action would be
6:24
Speaker 1: at the l Shaped Department at two Chestnut Street and
6:27
Speaker 1: Telegraph Hill, a scenic neighborhood overlooking the San Francisco Bay,
6:32
Speaker 1: Fisherman's Wharf, and even Alcatraz, where some of the dope
6:35
Speaker 1: pushers White had long ago put away. May have been idling.
6:42
Speaker 1: Why did Godliev select San Francisco In the nineteen fifties.
6:47
Speaker 1: The city was alive with art and music. The thinking
6:50
Speaker 1: was progressive. Like Greenwich Village, the city had embraced the
6:54
Speaker 1: Beat generation and the counterculture movement. In October d five,
7:00
Speaker 1: it hosted the famous Six Gallery Reading, where poets including
7:04
Speaker 1: Alan Ginsburg and Michael McClure read their work. It was
7:08
Speaker 1: the first time Ginsburg ever read Howell in public, and
7:11
Speaker 1: it was met with a raucous reception from drunk spectators,
7:15
Speaker 1: including Jack Kerouac. Cynically, Gottlieb targeted San Francisco because the
7:21
Speaker 1: gay community was stirring there. Sex positivity was in the
7:26
Speaker 1: first lesbian rights organization, the Daughters of Belitas, had just
7:30
Speaker 1: formed in the city. If the CIA was going to
7:32
Speaker 1: study sex, it needed to be in a place where
7:35
Speaker 1: sexuality was thriving. But before White's work could begin, the
7:41
Speaker 1: Chestnut Street apartment needed a makeover. Part of it was
7:46
Speaker 1: for surveillance purposes. White hired an engineering student from cal Berkeley,
7:50
Speaker 1: a tech whiz, to wire microphones into wall outlets. A
7:54
Speaker 1: movie camera was obscured behind a two way mirror where
7:57
Speaker 1: White could observe and record any d that unfolded. The
8:02
Speaker 1: radio antenna was intended to let agents parked outside listen
8:06
Speaker 1: to what was happening in the room. Maybe they were
8:09
Speaker 1: there to watch the door to take surveillance photographs for
8:12
Speaker 1: CIA blackmail purposes, But that audio signal is how the
8:16
Speaker 1: live sex shows wound up getting out over the airwaves
8:19
Speaker 1: to anyone picking up the frequency. White wasn't just concerned
8:24
Speaker 1: with the technical stuff he wanted atmosphere. To find it,
8:29
Speaker 1: he looked to Hugh Hefner and tried to ape the
8:32
Speaker 1: Playboy Aesthetic record show that he expensed over a hundred
8:36
Speaker 1: items to the CIA, including drapes, a mattress, art, and
8:41
Speaker 1: a telescope. With the CIA's money, he also bought several
8:45
Speaker 1: reproductions of Henri de toluz Latrex works, the nineteenth century
8:49
Speaker 1: artist who was fascinated by Paris's lurid underbelly. White thought
8:54
Speaker 1: the paintings, mostly of naked women kissing and embracing one another,
8:58
Speaker 1: set the mood he all so brought along some photos
9:01
Speaker 1: of women in bondage, likely supplied by his old friend,
9:04
Speaker 1: the fetish publisher John Willie. All of it gave Chestnut
9:08
Speaker 1: Street a kind of ci a Bordello aesthetic, a strange
9:12
Speaker 1: mix of softcore porn and cheap elegance. Henri de toluz
9:18
Speaker 1: La trec was also fond of depicting prostitutes in his work,
9:22
Speaker 1: and that was another reason San Francisco was ideal for
9:25
Speaker 1: White's purposes. In order to crack the code of sex
9:28
Speaker 1: and drugs as matters of national security, he needed the
9:32
Speaker 1: sex he needed professionals, and for that the CIA would
9:38
Speaker 1: need a pimp pert two staffing up. Normally, procuring female
9:56
Speaker 1: escorts would have fallen on Pierre Lafitte, who had been
9:59
Speaker 1: White's right hand a man back in New York City,
10:02
Speaker 1: but the FEET was still taking a vacation of sorts
10:04
Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg, Florida. That's where White had sent him
10:08
Speaker 1: to lay low following the controversial death of CIA employee
10:11
Speaker 1: Frank Olsen. He had lost his Robin, so he did
10:16
Speaker 1: the same thing Bruce Wayne once did in the comics.
10:19
Speaker 1: He got himself a new sidekick. White summoned a man
10:23
Speaker 1: named ira Ike Feldman. Of all the characters to pass
10:28
Speaker 1: through White's life, Feldman was one of the most outrageous.
10:31
Speaker 1: He was a fellow in Narcotics Bureau agent whose exterior
10:34
Speaker 1: helped obscure a fierce intellect. A former military intelligence officer,
10:39
Speaker 1: he spoke fluent Russian and Mandarin. He was also good
10:43
Speaker 1: with the undercover work. In fact, he'd spent the past
10:45
Speaker 1: several months posing as a heroin dealer in pimp under
10:48
Speaker 1: the alias Joe Capone. The two men knew each other
10:52
Speaker 1: by reputation. In journalist Richard Stratton tracked down Ike Feldman,
11:00
Speaker 1: and rather than being evasive or contrite about his CIA work,
11:03
Speaker 1: Feldman was all too happy to talk about it. Here's
11:06
Speaker 1: what he said about working with George White. White was
11:09
Speaker 1: the son of a bitch buddy who was a great cop.
11:13
Speaker 1: That was Feldman's way of saying he liked White, and
11:16
Speaker 1: just like White, he had taken his alter ego to extremes.
11:20
Speaker 1: His persona of Joe Capone was flamboyant, prone to blue
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Speaker 1: suede shoes, pinstriped suits, huge hats, and a massive fake
11:28
Speaker 1: diamond ring. Feldman was just five ft three, but quick
11:33
Speaker 1: with his tongue and his fists. Like White, he was
11:37
Speaker 1: from the old school of law enforcement. His preferred method
11:40
Speaker 1: of getting people to talk involved a hammer. Sometimes when
11:44
Speaker 1: people had information, it was the one way you could
11:46
Speaker 1: get it. If it was a guy, you took his God,
11:48
Speaker 1: can you hit it with, Amma, and they talked to you.
11:53
Speaker 1: But White made an appeal to Feldman's curiosity. What if
11:57
Speaker 1: there was a good way to get people to talk
12:00
Speaker 1: without hitting their dicks with hammers? White explained the program.
12:07
Speaker 1: He would supply the drugs, typically LSD, but whatever struck
12:11
Speaker 1: his fancy, from sedatives to uppers too, experimental drugs that
12:14
Speaker 1: didn't even have a name yet. The CIA would supply
12:17
Speaker 1: the safe house, and Feldman, as the pimp, would supply
12:21
Speaker 1: the women, ladies he recruited from bars and massage parlors.
12:27
Speaker 1: Feldman would later argue he was only posing as a pimp.
12:30
Speaker 1: He was an undercover cop playing a role, and the
12:33
Speaker 1: role of Jo Capone called for him to take on
12:35
Speaker 1: the profile of a drug dealer and vice kingpim. But
12:39
Speaker 1: when you're recruiting actual prostitutes to have actual sex with
12:42
Speaker 1: actual customers and paying them actual money, well doesn't that
12:46
Speaker 1: make you an actual pimp too. It wasn't long before
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Speaker 1: Ike Feldman CIA pimp had assembled a harem for George
12:55
Speaker 1: White's brothel. The prostitutes probably didn't know about the CIA part.
13:00
Speaker 1: They just knew Feldman and White were paying them between
13:03
Speaker 1: fifty two a hundred dollars a night to bring John's
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Speaker 1: back to the Chestnut Street apartment, where they were to
13:08
Speaker 1: serve the men drinks dosed with LSD or other drugs,
13:12
Speaker 1: and then they were supposed to indulge in whatever the
13:14
Speaker 1: John's desired. The women could keep whatever fee they normally
13:19
Speaker 1: charged for services rendered, whether Feldman took a cut of
13:22
Speaker 1: that to keep up his pimp appearances is unknown. But
13:27
Speaker 1: the women had another far more important incentive to work
13:30
Speaker 1: with White and Feldman. White promised each one that if
13:34
Speaker 1: they were ever busted by San Francisco police for their
13:36
Speaker 1: escort work, they could call him and he would arrange
13:39
Speaker 1: for their immediate release. The more men they brought to
13:43
Speaker 1: the pad, the more favors White would owe them. Georgia's
13:47
Speaker 1: girls had virtual immunity from the local police. Why it
13:52
Speaker 1: wasn't someone who looked down on sex workers. Long before
13:56
Speaker 1: he became an narcotics agent, White worked for the United
13:59
Speaker 1: States Border but roll and at the border he fell
14:02
Speaker 1: for one. In his autobiography, he wrote, her name was Estrellita,
14:08
Speaker 1: and it was clear that she loved me with deep passion.
14:13
Speaker 1: Otherwise would she have taken time off from her duties
14:16
Speaker 1: to lose herself in my embraces coming home? However, she
14:22
Speaker 1: subsequently fractured some of my ideals, if not my heart.
14:27
Speaker 1: When it came time to murmur audios that night, she
14:30
Speaker 1: rubbed her fingertips together in a manner that didn't at
14:32
Speaker 1: all suggest deathless love. Money, She said, you get paid
14:38
Speaker 1: for your work. I get paid for mine. Estralita made
14:43
Speaker 1: quite an impression. Later, while working as a narcotics cop
14:47
Speaker 1: in Omaha, White made the acquaintance of another prostitute named
14:51
Speaker 1: Babe Barnes, and it might have been his first experience
14:54
Speaker 1: as a bowyer. Babe freely permitted me to use her
14:58
Speaker 1: workshop as my observation. Most regularly. I was able to
15:01
Speaker 1: maintain a surveillance of her visitors, particularly the narcotic minded ones,
15:06
Speaker 1: from the clothes closet in her room or even from
15:09
Speaker 1: under her busy bed. Much of my knowledge of the
15:13
Speaker 1: more esoteric facts of life, not to mention, my information
15:17
Speaker 1: on the local narcotic traffic, was game in this somewhat
15:21
Speaker 1: clinical fashion. When why it was about to be transferred,
15:25
Speaker 1: he visited Babe Barnes one last time. I paid one
15:30
Speaker 1: more visit to Babe, whom I had learned to like.
15:33
Speaker 1: She was in the Council Bluffs jail during sixty days.
15:35
Speaker 1: It was a sad sort of rainy day, and she
15:38
Speaker 1: was pretty low, having run out of money, friends, and cigarettes.
15:43
Speaker 1: I restocked her in at least one or two of
15:46
Speaker 1: these categories, and suggested that she tried some other profession
15:48
Speaker 1: when it was over, which was like trying to persuade
15:52
Speaker 1: Campbell to stop carrying soup. What's funny? I was thinking
15:58
Speaker 1: about you and under my bed to get junkies. What's
16:03
Speaker 1: funny about that? Nothing except you're probably the first guy
16:08
Speaker 1: who ever learned my business from the ground up. So long, baby,
16:14
Speaker 1: So long, George. I'll see you again sometime now, he won't.
16:19
Speaker 1: It never happens, but good luck, and it never happened.
16:25
Speaker 1: Of course. It was the closest George White ever came
16:35
Speaker 1: to explaining why he could respect the law even though
16:38
Speaker 1: he didn't mind and even respected those who kept breaking in.
16:43
Speaker 1: She was a lost soul. Lost Souls Get to Me
16:59
Speaker 1: m Part three Breakthrough. In the spring of nine, everything
17:11
Speaker 1: was in place for George White. He'd finally be able
17:14
Speaker 1: to find out whether a combination of sex and drugs
17:18
Speaker 1: was the key to breaking down the walls of discretion.
17:22
Speaker 1: If it worked, maybe the Cold War would swing in
17:25
Speaker 1: their favor. If it didn't, George White, renowned sexual deviant,
17:30
Speaker 1: would still get paid to watch live sex shows. The
17:33
Speaker 1: apartment on Chestnut Street was fully wired for audio and video.
17:38
Speaker 1: White and Feldman had girls, LSD and an ample supply
17:41
Speaker 1: of subjects. White even gave his project a name, Operation
17:47
Speaker 1: Midnight Climax. The escorts would go out on the prowl
17:53
Speaker 1: and quickly and snare a man using time tested methods
17:56
Speaker 1: of seduction. You want to fuck, it's twenty dollars. White
18:01
Speaker 1: sat behind the two a mirror recording for ambience. White
18:06
Speaker 1: display his extensive collection of opium pipes collected from years
18:10
Speaker 1: of drug busts. In front of him was a large
18:13
Speaker 1: Martini picture, which he drained over the course of an evening,
18:17
Speaker 1: peeing it out into the toilet underneath him so he
18:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't miss a minute of action. Sometimes, when he was
18:23
Speaker 1: particularly struck by an escorts beauty, he turned to his
18:26
Speaker 1: colleague and say, that's a waste of a sin. The
18:30
Speaker 1: escort and her john would step into the bedroom, clothing
18:34
Speaker 1: falling to the floor. White told the women to approach
18:38
Speaker 1: anyone they liked, from outcasts to white collar professionals. Like
18:43
Speaker 1: any serious scientist, White wanted a cross section of subjects.
18:47
Speaker 1: The weather, it was at the bar, or in the
18:49
Speaker 1: living room, or even in the bedroom. The john's were
18:52
Speaker 1: always offered a drink, often with something in it. As
18:58
Speaker 1: the LSD worked its magic, the escorts would do what
19:02
Speaker 1: escorts do. At first, White wanted to see if they're
19:06
Speaker 1: willingness to try things sexually had any influence on whether
19:09
Speaker 1: the man would loosen up. Positions played out like a
19:15
Speaker 1: Comma Sutra page come to life. They assumed whatever role
19:19
Speaker 1: their partner wanted. A scolding teacher, a jilted lover. A
19:24
Speaker 1: closet full of sex toys was at their disposal, everything
19:27
Speaker 1: from dildo's two paddles. After experiencing their fantasy of choice,
19:32
Speaker 1: the men would enter their refractory period, and it was
19:36
Speaker 1: here George White would lean forward, martini in hand and
19:40
Speaker 1: wait for a revelation. The escorts would poke and prod
19:44
Speaker 1: the John's about their profession, their family, their friends. Sometimes
19:49
Speaker 1: they were politicians, sometimes millionaires. Others worked for companies that
19:54
Speaker 1: demanded discretion. What would they say in George White's fantasia,
20:00
Speaker 1: a place where pleasure was always on tap. Basically, they
20:04
Speaker 1: talk about their wives, about their kids, about their bosses.
20:10
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was under the influence of LSD. Sometimes just
20:14
Speaker 1: sex would be enough. White always learned what the men
20:18
Speaker 1: did for a living, but he was looking for more.
20:23
Speaker 1: Would an airline pilot talk about the technical issues of
20:25
Speaker 1: a passenger plane? Would a lawyer talk about a client.
20:30
Speaker 1: The CIA's theory was that men were most vulnerable as
20:33
Speaker 1: they neared orgasm. Their hormones had completely taken over by
20:38
Speaker 1: that point, and if the escort could somehow delay their climax,
20:42
Speaker 1: they might talk. This didn't work. When the escorts tried
20:48
Speaker 1: to stall or converse, the men were virtually in a trance.
20:52
Speaker 1: Their hormones were the dominant force in their brains, so
20:56
Speaker 1: the CIA tried other things. Years later, Feldman would recall
21:03
Speaker 1: the CIA shipped a new aphrodisiac to the Pad for
21:05
Speaker 1: White and his girls to try out. Not long after,
21:09
Speaker 1: the women brought back a number of Russian sailors and
21:12
Speaker 1: served them this concoction, which CIA chemists had informally dubbed
21:16
Speaker 1: the sextender. White wanted to know all kinds of crap,
21:20
Speaker 1: but they weren't talking, so we had the girl slip
21:22
Speaker 1: him this sex drug. These guys went crazy. White found
21:26
Speaker 1: out what he wanted to know. What Feldman was describing
21:30
Speaker 1: was something remarkably like viagra, which wouldn't go on sale
21:33
Speaker 1: for another forty years. But there was a missing piece
21:37
Speaker 1: of the equation. White was a master interrogator, someone who
21:41
Speaker 1: could make a mime talk, but Now that the prostitutes
21:45
Speaker 1: were the public face of this experiment, they had to
21:47
Speaker 1: learn a different kind of manipulation, and so did the CIA.
21:54
Speaker 1: Remember that even though George White had been around the block,
21:57
Speaker 1: the CIA hadn't not when it came to actual coercion.
22:01
Speaker 1: They wanted to know everything they could about the role
22:04
Speaker 1: of sex and espionage, so they constantly dispatched psychologists to
22:08
Speaker 1: interview the women, asking them about how they approached men,
22:11
Speaker 1: how they made them comfortable, what men liked, what they didn't.
22:18
Speaker 1: They didn't know what a trick was, what a john was.
22:21
Speaker 1: It wasn't uncommon to walk into the pad and see
22:24
Speaker 1: a CIA shrink, white dress, shirt, sleeves rolled up and
22:28
Speaker 1: fogging up their eyeglasses as a prostitute told them the
22:30
Speaker 1: best ways to use sex to get what they wanted,
22:34
Speaker 1: in their case money. For the CIA, it was secrets.
22:40
Speaker 1: Sometimes these exchanges bordered on the ridiculous. Once Feldman walked
22:45
Speaker 1: in to find CIA psychologist John Gittinger on the floor
22:49
Speaker 1: with two prostitutes using bendable pipe cleaners the kind you'd
22:53
Speaker 1: find in school art projects, as the women contorted them
22:57
Speaker 1: into human shapes to illustrate the various acrobat next their
23:00
Speaker 1: clients liked getting Jer photographed these tiny dioramas for posterity,
23:06
Speaker 1: carrying them all back to CIA headquarters. But most of
23:10
Speaker 1: the time no psychologists or mental health professionals would be
23:14
Speaker 1: on hand to oversee the experiments. Most of the time
23:18
Speaker 1: it was just George White, inebriated, sitting on the portable
23:21
Speaker 1: toilet behind a mirror, taking notes. White was many things,
23:29
Speaker 1: a cop, a brawler, a patriot, but he wasn't a doctor.
23:34
Speaker 1: His observations were superficial in the extreme. He could only
23:38
Speaker 1: record and comment on whether a subject had spoken freely,
23:42
Speaker 1: not about their overall mental state. From his perch, White
23:46
Speaker 1: absorbed only the most salacious elements of this grand experiment.
23:50
Speaker 1: He was a CIA sanctioned voyer, just as he had
23:55
Speaker 1: with Babe Barnes back in Omaha. White took a liking
23:58
Speaker 1: to one escorton which to kill her. Her name was
24:02
Speaker 1: Liz Evans, and she spent hours with both White and
24:05
Speaker 1: Gettinger filling them in on every possible nuance of her profession.
24:10
Speaker 1: She had no idea they were acting on behalf of
24:13
Speaker 1: the CIA. White was just a narcotics cop and Gettinger
24:17
Speaker 1: a very curious associate. On a few occasions. White asked
24:22
Speaker 1: her to accompany foreign dignitaries to some black tie events,
24:26
Speaker 1: then retreat with them back to their hotel rooms. Was
24:29
Speaker 1: White behind a mirror in an adjacent room filming? Was
24:33
Speaker 1: he under the bed as he had been with Barnes?
24:37
Speaker 1: Evans never said, though she did have something to say
24:40
Speaker 1: to write our hp Albarelli Jr. I was paid to
24:44
Speaker 1: practice my womanly charms. I'm sure George filmed parts of
24:48
Speaker 1: those encounters if he could have a lot of the
24:52
Speaker 1: times there were guys with George read movie cameras and
24:55
Speaker 1: sound equipment. Even more curiously, Evans recalled the whites experiments
25:01
Speaker 1: sometimes involved some very unconventional means of influence. We used
25:06
Speaker 1: to play these crazy games hypnosis and like that. Yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: I think I was hypnotized once by a friend of George's.
25:16
Speaker 1: White peered through his looking glass for weeks and then months,
25:20
Speaker 1: the film camera capturing all of the encounters. He spent
25:24
Speaker 1: his days hunting drug dealers and his nights watching naked
25:27
Speaker 1: bodies contort themselves into any and every sexual position imaginable.
25:34
Speaker 1: The results were always unpredictable. The men seemed guarded, even
25:38
Speaker 1: after drinks, even after hallucinogenic chemicals turned the pad into
25:42
Speaker 1: a world of bright colors and four breasted women uncloid.
25:48
Speaker 1: I know we're close. What was missing was something prostitutes
25:52
Speaker 1: didn't normally offer, intimacy. White took the prostitute aside and
26:02
Speaker 1: told them to try something after sex, after climax. They
26:07
Speaker 1: would usually hurry out of bed, get dressed, and get
26:10
Speaker 1: the john out the door like a restaurant. High turnover
26:14
Speaker 1: was good for business, but White told them to linger instead,
26:18
Speaker 1: to just stay in bed and talk. The CIA had
26:21
Speaker 1: been looking at this experiment as a two sided equation
26:23
Speaker 1: between sex and drugs, but White saw a third side,
26:28
Speaker 1: the male ego. When a prostitute began taking an interest
26:31
Speaker 1: in the man beyond there a lotted time, they were flattered,
26:35
Speaker 1: They felt special, and they wanted to reciprocate by talking, conversing,
26:41
Speaker 1: sharing themselves, just like their escorts appeared to be doing.
26:45
Speaker 1: As one CIA officer later said, to find a prostitute
26:49
Speaker 1: who is willing to stay is a hell of a
26:51
Speaker 1: shock to anyone used to prostitutes. It has a tremendous
26:55
Speaker 1: effect on the guy. It's a boost to his ego
26:58
Speaker 1: if she's telling him he was really and she wants
27:01
Speaker 1: to stay for a few more hours. Most of the
27:04
Speaker 1: time it gets pretty vulnerable. What the hell is he
27:07
Speaker 1: going to talk about? Not the sex? So he starts
27:09
Speaker 1: talking about his business. It's at this time she can
27:13
Speaker 1: lead him gently. The simple act of human proximity and
27:18
Speaker 1: a very reduced sense of inhibition thanks to the drugs,
27:21
Speaker 1: led to the john saying things they shouldn't private, things
27:26
Speaker 1: things one wouldn't normally say to an escort. Everyone is
27:33
Speaker 1: taking kicked back to Sydney Hall. Everyone, you sure, just
27:40
Speaker 1: tell you play the game. The prostitutes weren't there solely
27:48
Speaker 1: for the John's. When George White's boss, Sydney Gottlieb came
27:52
Speaker 1: to visit, they were there for him too, Just as
27:55
Speaker 1: he had with L. S. D. Gottlieb liked to take
27:58
Speaker 1: a hands on approach. Several times Sydney Gottlieb came out.
28:02
Speaker 1: I met Gottlieb at the pad and a White's office.
28:05
Speaker 1: White used to send me to the airport to pick
28:06
Speaker 1: up Sydney in this other wacko John getten you the psychologist.
28:11
Speaker 1: Sydney was a nice guy. He was a fucking nut.
28:14
Speaker 1: They're all fucking nuts. Feldman claimed, Gottlie availed himself with
28:20
Speaker 1: the hired help, retreating to a private space with the prostitutes.
28:25
Speaker 1: They did it as a favorite of Feldman. This is
28:28
Speaker 1: all rather illicit, dark, even for George White, but Ike
28:33
Speaker 1: Feldman managed to bring it down to another more disturbing level.
28:37
Speaker 1: Decades later, a woman stepped forward who had been an
28:40
Speaker 1: escort working for Feldman on an narcotics case. Money and
28:44
Speaker 1: favors weren't the only form of payment. The CIA offered,
28:48
Speaker 1: you do a good job on this and I can
28:49
Speaker 1: give you some of the best heroine you've ever had.
28:54
Speaker 1: When an escort was a drug addict. It was another
28:56
Speaker 1: way in a way to motivate this army of subcontractors.
29:03
Speaker 1: White was prepared to do anything to succeed. But here's
29:07
Speaker 1: the thing about CIA financed drug dens and brothels. Sometimes
29:12
Speaker 1: they can get too conspicuous. White had been in business
29:19
Speaker 1: for about a year in Telegraph Hill when Ike Feldman
29:21
Speaker 1: decided to throw a party. It was a lavish affair
29:25
Speaker 1: full of attractive women, drugs, and a beautiful view of
29:28
Speaker 1: San Francisco. As Feldman mingled in his pinstriped suit, he
29:34
Speaker 1: made deals for heroin. He flashed cash, he let it
29:39
Speaker 1: be know that he was after no bigger a fish
29:41
Speaker 1: than Ronaldo Red Ferrari, san Francisco's reigning criminal kingpin. No
29:48
Speaker 1: one knew Feldman was a cop, but they soon would,
29:52
Speaker 1: and when Feldman took the stand to testify it Ferrari's
29:55
Speaker 1: eventual trial, but San Francisco examiner made sure to explain
29:59
Speaker 1: how he pulled the fast woman Ferrari, that the spectacular
30:03
Speaker 1: parties had all been arranged, that Feldman was working undercover,
30:08
Speaker 1: and that Chestnut Street was where he had laid his trap.
30:14
Speaker 1: George White's Utopia was no longer an anonymous broadcast, and
30:19
Speaker 1: the CIA's secret campaign to harness the power of sex
30:22
Speaker 1: and drugs was on the brink of being laid bare
30:25
Speaker 1: for the entire world to see. But George White wasn't
30:29
Speaker 1: about to lose his dream job for a second time.
30:33
Speaker 1: He wasn't going to let San Francisco become another New York.
30:37
Speaker 1: There was still too much to learn, too many secrets
30:40
Speaker 1: to uncover. He'd do anything to keep it going, even
30:45
Speaker 1: if it meant teaming up with the magician. Yeah. Operation
31:13
Speaker 1: Midnight Climax is hosted by Noel Brown. This show's written
31:16
Speaker 1: by Jake Rosson, Editing, sound design and mixing by Ernie
31:20
Speaker 1: Indra Dat and Natasha Jacobs. Original music by Aeron Kaufman.
31:25
Speaker 1: Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson and MAURICEA. Brown Show.
31:29
Speaker 1: Logo by Lucy Quendonia. Special thanks to Enzo Salucci, Amanda Colbinson,
31:35
Speaker 1: Spencer Gibson, David crum Holtz, Vanessa crum Holtz, Vinny Massimino,
31:39
Speaker 1: and Ted Ramy. Julian Weller is our supervising producer. Our
31:43
Speaker 1: executive producers are Jason English and mangesh Ha Ticketer. See
31:48
Speaker 1: you next week.