The film you are about to see represents a
significant breakthrough in the advancing
science of the motion picture. You are about
to witness history in the making.
I first dropped acid when i was eighteen.
I was over at these people's house one night.
This guy I went to school with was over there
and asked me if I wanted to try some acid.
I had read about it in the newspapers and
heard a few friends talk about it, so I was
curious. I was pretty jacked up on marijuana
so I decided to try it. And I dropped it.
As we see at the typical psychiatric ward,
LSD is much more than a mere fad. Right now
we have over a dozen people hospitalized because
of acute symptoms resulting directly from
their taking LSD. What is LSD? How does it
work? When did it all begin?
It all began in a laboratory very much like
this one. In 1938, Dr. Albert Hoffman, in
Switzerland, was looking for new drugs in the
treatment of migraine headaches. He had been
studying substances that came from the mold
that grow on rye plants. Now it turned out
that these substances were of no use in the
treatment of migrane headaches but, subsequent
investigation showed that they are very fascinating
indeed in the changes they produce in our
mental state.
Changes in mental states, it turns out was
precisely what the United States Central Intelligence
Agency was interested in. As these declassifed
documenta show, beginning as early as 1953,
under the code name MK ULTRA, the CIA was
beginning to experiment with LSD as a mind
control drug. In particular, they were interested
in the effects of LSD on an unwitting subject
in a real life setting.
To that end, MK ULTRA operatives started spontaneously
dosing themselves and other agents with the
drug. Things got so out of hand that a memo
was circulated among the CIA staff. This memo
stated, in part, that they did not reccommend
testing LSD in the Christmas punch bowls usually
present at the Christmas office parties.
So we tripped down to Market street and I
decided to buy a hot dog. I put the hot dog
up to my mouth and somebody started screaming.
I did not know what was happening so I looked
up at my friend Terry and said, "Did you hear
that? Didn't you hear someone scream?" He
said, "No." I got the hot dog up to my mouth
again and I was ready to bite. The scream
got louder. And I looked down at the hot dog
and there was a face on him. Eyes, nose, a
mouth. I had put the ketchup to where it looked
like his hair. And he started telling me that
I couldn't eat him. He had a wife and seven
kids at home to support. And I stood there
with this hot dog and asked Terry, "Do You
Know this Hot Dog is talking to me?"
This girl is obviously acutely disturbed.
She will be in the hospital for a few weeks
or a few months. Some others who take LSD
will have even more tragic freakouts. And
there's no way to tell which one these will
be. Some forget what height means, and in
a turned on or euphoric state, step or attempt
to fly from cliffs and high windows with real
life, permanent non-psychadelic results.
One of the first people to ever experience
something with real life, permanent non-psychadelic
results was Dr. Frank Olson. Dr. Olson was
a US Army scientist who specialized in bacterialogical
warfare research, most specifically anthrax.
In November 1953, Olson and and a group of
CIA and Army technicians gathered at a location
in remote Maryland for a work related getaway.
At one point during the meeting, a high ranking
CIA official dosed the gathered scientists
with LSD. Whereas most of the particpants
enjoyed the experience, Olson's behavior was
completey altered. He became sullen and withdrawn.
And seemed to experience remorse at the type
of work he was doing. His supervisor sent
him to a CIA pschiatrist in New York, who
reccommended that Olson be put into a sanitorium.
On his last night in Manhattan, Olson, and
Dr. Robert Lashbrook, the CIA agent responsbile
for watching out for him, checked into the Statler
Hilton hotel. Sometime during the night, Lashbrook
woke to the sound of breaking glass. Olson
had thrown himself out the window to the street
ten floors below. The matter was investigated
by the CIA , who determined that Olson had
commited suicide.
Finally I decided I was just hallucinating
so I put it into my mouth and bit down.
It screamed so loud that you could hear it all
over town. So I had to throw it on the ground and step on it.
And I was jumping on this
hot dog in the middle of Market street.
I realized that I had murdered it. And I took
off screaming down the street, scared.
Also running scared at this time was the CIA.
In 1975, the Rockefeller commission, appointed
by president Gerald Ford, seen here at right,
started conducting an investigation of some
of the alleged misdeeds by the CIA.
Some of the first excesses of the agency to
come to light were the MKULTRA experiments
and the death of Frank Olson. Olson's family,
unaware of the true circumstances surrounding
Frank's demise, was shocked. In response,
the White House offered the Olsons an apology
and a monetary settlement. The family was
even brought to the White House to meet with
Gerald Ford, seen here again on right.
Prior to the Olsons arrival in Washington,
a memo was circulated among the White House
staff, outlining their strategy in dealing
with the Olson case.
The memo was addressed to staff member Donald Rumsfeld. The memo's
author, Dick Cheney.
Frank Olson's son Eric had lingering doubts
about the circumstances surrounding his father's
death. In 1994, he had his father's body exhumed
and autopsied by a team of forensic sceientists.
One of the first things the medical team noticed
was the presence of a severe hematoma or hemmorage
on the temple of Frank Olson's skull. A wound,
some of the doctors agreed, that was there
before Olson's fall out of the Statler window.
The teams leader, Dr. James Starrs, wronte
in his report, "It is my view, and a number
of my team members, that it was homicide"
The film "Case Study LSD" was produced by
the Lockheed Aircraft corporation. Another
of Lockheeds products was the U2 spy plane,
which they built under contract, for the CIA.
Well now, you've heard from both sides of
the question. But, what you do with your life,
is up to you. You have the choice, to have
the courage, to see and deal with the world
for what it really is - far, far from perfect,
but, for you, and for me, the only one there is.
